Hope for Light
by Tonegawa Rie
Summary: Somehow they start to pay attention to each other, incidentally, on the same day. Shisui x FemNaruto.
1. Chapter 1: Light 「光」

**Chapter 1: Light**

A whiff of the nostalgic scent made him glance over to the ramen shop.

That was the first time. When Shisui saw that long blonde hair with the sunlight making it glow from behind, he was all negative because he just activated his Mangekyou Sharingan and he was drowning in his despair.

Inexplicably, he felt something inside him stir when he looked at the surreal color. He felt the unique feeling of the chakra that surrounded the hair and the owner.

Light. Hope. Contentment.

He felt those emotions swirling as he felt his body went relax.

He smiled lightly and ran to the Hokage tower, ready to report his disaster of a mission.

Oddly, he found peace at that moment.

* * *

Naruto glanced behind her, pausing from finishing her bowl of miso ramen. She had noticed a chakra signature of someone looking at her without any fear or anger or hatred, or any negative emotions for that matter. She was intrigued that the person looking at her was feeling too positive towards her that she had almost broken her chopsticks and her stomach clenched with excitement.

It was hope and contentment she guessed. She recognized those emotions because she herself had those when she was given her own apartment, away from the matron's cold looks and mean treatments.

Because aside from Hokage no Jiichan, Teuchi-san, and Ayame-no-Neechan, she never felt those positive emotions. Moreover, she didn't feel the pity that Teuchi-san always had when he served her, the guilt the Hokage Jiichan have when he walked along with her in the village, or the doubt that Ayame no Neechan sometimes have.

Naruto wanted to know that person right away.

Yet, she didn't want to in fear that was a fluke. Even though she was sure that was not.

But that didn't stop her from memorizing that chakra signature and remembering the day's date.

She didn't want to break the illusion of someone caring for her from a distance.

* * *

It's not stalking.

Naruto reasoned to herself that she was just curious when she felt guilty of checking in an unknown person with her mind's eye. She just wanted to know the well-being of the person that made her feel... she was a decent human person. The feeling of his presence in her life was different from the people that had already acknowledged her existence because she had never met face to face with her 'observer'.

She was on her way to the nearest grocery store. Naruto was sure now that person was watching her a minute or so after she was out from her apartment.

No, that's not ANBU that Jii-chan made to watch her movements a few years ago. She was certain that the ANBU guys never felt that deeply for her.

Naruto was fairly certain that the person that seldom around her proximity was not a stalker though. Because that person never watched her longer than a minute, and she herself never looked at the chakra longer than five minutes... mostly.

Really, she wanted to approach that person. But no because that person is a ninja, and when she, while bored, comparing this person chakra to Jii-chan, she was left utterly shocked.

That person could become a Hokage with that much chakra, she concluded after comparing his chakra reserves to Hokage-jiichan. In addition to that, she knew now that the person was a male because no female was that tall in this village, she concluded when she accidentally zoomed in too close when comparing that chakra to Jiichan.

So that was her motivation to starts training earlier than her fellow orphans and she started to visit the library almost every day and exercising every day until her body collapsed. Now that she was an academy student, she felt her goal closer than ever.

Naruto's dream was to become Hokage, which she had decided upon when she was three. For the reason that she wanted to be acknowledged by people, not ignored or looked at like she was a scum. Hokage-Jiichan was always being noticed by people whenever he was walking out on the street. She wanted that.

She didn't train or anything before because she didn't have the drive before, or she was too busy searching for at least one person that made her feel content with herself.

She had found it and the result was; she trained to the best of her ability for the past two years.

"Watch out, Konoha!" she shouted, not really thinking that she was in the middle of a busy street. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, your future Hokage dattebayo!" Naruto grinned brightly while pointing at that person's chakra signature. It didn't even register her mind that she might have exposed her skill in sensing chakra when she looked at the direction the person was sitting.

Well, she never considered her skill in sensing a special ability anyway.

She cackled loudly afterward, not acknowledging the ridiculous stares that the villagers now gave her. Knowing that the person was watching her now and she wanted to tell that person of her dream, she didn't care that she embarrassed herself to death by shouting it in the middle of the village while walking to the academy.

Naruto never noticed that she walked a little too fast after that.

* * *

It had been two years since Shisui noticed her. Although noticing that she was the village's Jinchuuriki, he didn't stop his somewhat irrational attachment to her.

Frankly, he didn't want to stop.

Even when he counted that it had been only seven years now since the Kyuubi attacked, and that made her eight years younger than him. Her appearance deceived him because she actually looked like a 10-year-old from a distance, with her long hair and all.

He swears to himself, yet again, that he isn't a lolicon or anything that Itachi had suggested to him. He is just attracted to her hair color, that's all. He idolized the Yondaime when he was a kid, after all.

Shisui was fifteen and a newly made ANBU. He had never put his interest in getting a girlfriend because the only thing in his mind was his village's wellbeing. He had never kissed anyone (and didn't plan to) and he had never planned to like someone.

 _'Because for long as I could remember, the safety of the village and my clan are always my top priority,'_ he mused to himself.

Ever since he spotted her, without him noticing, he was drawn to her calming and bright chakra that he started following her when he was distracted from thoughts that frankly made him want to lurch forward and vomit.

When the pressure was too much, he remembered her hair, that smile and that bright calming chakra that was the symbol of peace for him.

He badly wanted to hear her talk to him, smile at him. But that was absurd. She was the Jinchuuriki and he was an Uchiha. They couldn't be seen together, that would make the village restless and could possibly make the Uchiha use her for the plan if he was acquainted with her.

Because he had the Mangekyou Sharingan that their ancestor, Uchiha Madara, had used to control the Kyuubi.

He was content with knowing that if, no, _when_ the coup's plan stopped he can see her every time he wanted.

"Watch out, Konoha! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, your future Hokage dattebayo!"

Shisui frowned when he heard her. That reminded him, he didn't even know her name for two years for Shodaime's sake. Not everyone knew her name, her whisker marks were the sign that she was the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki, but he should have known. He's an ANBU member so he could gather information with ease, especially with his skill in using Shunshin undetected; so why wouldn't he, after all this time, not searching for her name or any information of her?

He didn't know, or _he didn't want to know_. Somewhere deep inside, he wanted these feelings to be like a fan admiring an idol and not something deeper than that. But he wasn't the type to lie to himself, so he admitted―to himself― that he felt something about her.

But... Naruto, huh. Definitely not a feminine name that the Uchiha Clan would give to their daughters, but it's unique in his opinion. And just now, future Hokage? Wow, he knew her dream or ambition now.

That made him grin and his stomach bubbled with an unknown feeling.

... wait.

She was pointing towards his direction... and her eyes stared directly at his eyes when she said that.

Shisui badly wanted that to be a coincidence.

Because for the past two years he never suppressed his chakra when watching her and if she was a sensor, a skilled one or not, she might notice him watching her and and and-

Shisui's brain couldn't compute anymore so he used a quick shunshin to go to his apartment.

 _'Stupid_ , _'_ he reprimanded himself. _'You're a freaking jounin! Get a hold of yourself!'_

Shisui collapsed to his bed when he arrived. He buried his face on his pillow, seriously feeling like he wanted to crawl to the deepest hole the Iwagakure made in the last war.

Suddenly, he felt a disturbance of chakra in his room. Shisui stood up abruptly with narrowed eyes when he saw the mask the person wore.

 _'Ne's ANBU?'_

"Uchiha Shisui, Danzō-sama requested your presence at the old Amaterasu temple."

Shisui nodded. The ANBU disappeared thereafter.

Shisui squeezed his eyes shut.

 _'It's time.'_

He opened his eyes and used his personal Shunshin to reach his destination.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Ta-da. My first Shisui x FemNaruto! I write this because I want more of this pairing. If you write one, post it! Don't hide it :)**

 **See you~!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**


	2. Chapter 2: Darkness 「闇」

**Thank you for the faves, follows, and the reviews! Without them, I don't know if I want to share this story with you guys.**

 **Chapter 2: Darkness**

Shisui cursed his naivety the moment he saw his sharingan entered Danzō's right eye. Of course, he had wanted to take it back right away, but the pain and shock prevented him from using Shunshin to snatch back his own eye from Danzō's eye socket.

A mere second later, with Danzō's personal 'Ne' ANBU members surrounded him, the man in front of him said the most absurd sentence he had ever heard in his life.

"Give me the other one."

The moment his mind registered that, Shisui started a chain of hand seals.

' _Katon: Goukyaku no Jutsu (Fire Release: Fire Ball Technique)!_ ' Shisui shouted inside his mind, adrenaline backing him up.

It took four Ne 'root' members to spew _Suiton: Mizurappa (Water Release: Water Trumpet_ _)_ to match the large fireball; a statement of how powerful the fire was.

Shisui took no chances as he repeatedly using Shunshin to get away from the old temple.

Without a hand seal.

He finally pulled it off after all his attempts of not to use a hand seal.

Of course, he didn't dwell on it much because of the circumstances.

How could he, when all he thought about was to run?

* * *

Shisui panted, hands on his knees as his surviving eye's vision blurred. He had stopped to rest a bit; low on chakra and in pain. He had managed to use Susano'o a few times with only his left eye to knock out his pursuers. Thankfully, the adrenaline loosened the pain in his right eye and he still can think clearly to make a hasty plan that will lead him to his demise, but he felt better knowing that it was either this or making Danzō too powerful.

He knew now that Danzō was dangerous, and that he regretted the trust that he gave naturally before. He was too naive. Danzō only cared about the village, and that was actually a problem. A village can't flourish if the citizens are not considered. Apparently, Danzō didn't get the memo that the village actually needed people, like the Uchiha, to live inside the village. It was such a fine example of dangerous tunnel vision that Shisui couldn't help but dread the possible future of Danzō having _both_ of his eyes in his disposal.

At first, after a few times of having to interact with the elder, he thought that their philosophy resembled each other. But now he could see that they were very different because Shisui knew where to draw the line and actually consider lives, even the one who had betrayed his village, as something that can't be taken lightly. Danzō couldn't see that if he used violence for the reason to prevent conflict, someday it would be brought to light for no one can hide something like this in the dark forever.

Shisui felt the very familiar chakra signature below the tree that he had occupied now. It took a lot of control to not start apologizing to death to his friend that he viewed as his younger brother.

He had failed in his quest in uniting both of his clan and the village. He had failed a friend that was like a younger brother the moment Danzō took his eye. He had failed to guarantee a good future for the young generations. He had failed his Hokage, the village, the clan and... Naruto.

He didn't want to think about Naruto at all right now.

Shisui shook his head as he called out to Itachi, who was waiting for their daily discussion about the coup and started to lead them both to the Naka River.

"It seems that the coup can't be stopped." Shisui began with his thoughts all scrambled up, his back turned on Itachi. "If Konoha breaks out in a civil war, other countries will attack. It will be a full-scale war. I was going to use Kotoamatsukami to stop the coup, but Danzō took my right eye." He looked over his shoulder, showing his empty, bleeding right eye. "He doesn't trust me."

Shisui noticed that Itachi's chakra went haywire with surprise and a barely detected anger that even he, an average sensor, could feel. But he continued on, regardless of how despondent he was feeling.

"Regardless of the method, Danzou wanted to protect the village in his own way. He's probably targeting my left eye too." Shisui steeled his resolve and smiled. "To prevent that, I will give you my eye."

Shisui didn't even flinch a bit when he took his own eye from his eye socket, despite the sharp pain when he pulled it. He guessed that he got used to the pain. And the feeling of his impending death maybe made him a little numb.

"I can only entrust this to my best friend," he declared as he presented his own eye to Itachi. He can't see anything, but he kept smiling but inside he was frustrated at his situation. He felt hopeless that he couldn't see the outcomes if he lived. Danzō was probably in the Sandaime's office, ready to intercept in case he decided to report. His smile stretched as his doubt lessened. He gravely requested, "Please protect the village and the Uchiha name."

Shisui heard his and Itachi's Crow approaching him and take his eye from his hand. He was inwardly glad that he can hear his long life battle partner for the last time.

"I accept it. What will you do now?" Itachi stoically stared at his best friend, but his emotions showed when his eyes take the form of the advanced three tomoe Sharingan without him willing them to. He felt something amiss when he finally noticed that behind Shisui was a cliff and below was the Naka River that was famous for its depth.

"If I die, surely several circumstances will change." ' _Will they? I can only hope_ _._ ' "I've already left a note behind."

Itachi finally realized what that meant, his eyes widened as he saw his best friend nearing the edge of the cliff.

"Wait, Shisui!" he shouted, as his body unconsciously moved to intercept.

"Don't stop me, Itachi." He really _meant_ it.

Shisui let himself fall with a smile on his face.

 _'You won't stop me if you're my friend, Itachi. You know how I get when I want something. But... I'm sorry, I'm leaving out everything to you now.'_

Since his suicide note held some truth, Shisui couldn't bring himself to even ponder one more time about retaliating. And he made himself feel better that one of the purposes he did this in front of Itachi was to awaken the accursed power that was the Mangekyou Sharingan.

* * *

Naruto woke up abruptly from her afternoon nap. Today was her birthday; October tenth, so everybody was busy mourning for the death by performing rituals and festivals that, obviously, she can't join. Usually, when it was her birthday she would sleep all day long to avoid the urge to see the festivals.

Somehow, today was different.

Naruto can't help but began to search for the calm chakra that she always search at least once every three days, because she can't always feel it close that when she wanted to feel it she resorted to searching it with her mind eye, and that took every ounce of concentration that she had because of how difficult it was for her to concentrate.

It was almost dark outside―the sky was a dark, burning orange― she took notice while she sensed the west part of Konoha.

' _Everyone was enjoying the festival,_ ' Naruto thought, her eyes darkening. She shook her head and continuing her search.

 _'There!_ ' At the old temple a little on the edge of the village. She sighed with relief when she found that the chakra was fine and not disturbed. But when she was about to lose concentration she almost shrieked with surprise.

The person was just now being attacked. And judging by the situation, it was not a spar. A second later she felt that someone; she had already memorized that chakra as dangerous, took the person's right eye forcefully. She seethed, mad when she felt the person was hurt but relieved a second later when she felt it escaping from that place by some technique that called Shunshin, which was not a mandatory jutsu to learn in the Academy, but she didn't know how it worked.

Naruto hurriedly went to grab her backpack, filled with scrolls and Fuuinjutsu equipment. She hastily grabbed a medical kit that she made by copying the medic at the hospital, and she went outside via window.

She didn't care about anything else right now. That chakra, something she held on to for two years now, was in danger. She would willingly go to hell and retrieve the person back safely. Naruto quietly promised to herself to not fail.

* * *

Itachi was left shell-shocked with his extended hand hanging over the edge of the cliff. He didn't want to believe it. He wanted it all to be a bad joke someone pulled on him. Anything, other than this cruel event that felt so, _so_ real.

His best friend, his older brother-figure, just killed himself because some village elder didn't trust an obviously loyal shinobi. Uchiha Shisui was even more loyal to the village than the clan, being a double spy for Konoha proved it. To him, Danzō's action of preventing Shisui from casting Kotoamatsukami was illogical and he could say that there was no logical reason behind that act.

 _'Why?_ ' he screamed inside as he crushed the wish to join Shisui when he remembered he had a little brother that was still breathing and alive, waiting for him to come home.

Why did it turn out like this? They just wanted peace and this happened. It wasn't fair but he knew this was the shinobi world; where the word fair didn't belong.

He noticed that his eyes were bleeding. He understood then that he had just awakened the Mangekyou Sharingan, the cursed power that until now―to his knowledge― only Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Izuna (the person who he was named after), and Shisui had.

' _Shisui, did you plan this?_ ' Itachi stared down at the cliff and stood up slowly, dazed. He was too distracted with his thoughts that he didn't notice that a person leaped off of the cliff the moment he turned his back on it.

Itachi resolved his will to meet the Sandaime to discuss this unfortunate event.

* * *

Naruto gritted her teeth. She was running as fast as she could, but she was no match to the speed of the famous Shunshin no Shisui.

' _Idiot_!' she shouted desperately inside, as she felt the chakra was nearing a cliff and jumped off of it Naruto gasped. ' _No. No, no, no, dammit! Don't!_ '

She had noticed that another chakra signature was present near the cliff. She didn't want to be noticed by that other person that let the person she liked (she admitted it in her head) die via suicide. She wanted to beat him (she was sure it was a male even though he had long hair) senseless. But no, her priority was to give life again to that dimmed chakra that starting to drown.

Naka River was exceptionally deep that nobody knew how deep it was, so when someone drowned until they reach to the bottom, no one can retrieve the body. Not even the Shodaime know how deep it was even when he attempted to measure it by growing trees from the bottom of the river to the surface. It was at least 350 meters deep, the Shodaime reported.

Running continuously, Naruto started to pump chakra to her legs so she can be fast enough to reach that person before it was out of her reach.

Her eyes focused to the edge of the cliff as soon as she saw it. She was not afraid to die when she jumped off of it. The possibility of dying did cross her mind, but she did not mind it a bit because the situation didn't give room for her to doubt her spontaneous action. Moreover, Naruto trusted her gut instinct more than her logical mind.

As she was nearing the water's surface she let two chakra chains emerge from her back to slow down and stabilize her fall by attaching them to either side of the cliff.

"Urgh!" She felt the wind knocked out of her, her eyes narrowed. She was quickly feeling nauseous, but she knew she had to endured it.

Once she stopped falling to her own death, she let herself entered the water. Naruto was thankful that the academy taught their students how to swim, as she dived deeper and deeper. She swam for about five minutes. It was starting to hurt because her lungs yearned for air, but she paid them no thought and she kept focused on the chakra to bring him out.

Despite the pain, she smiled widely as she saw and felt her hand caught the guy's collar. As quickly as she could, she tugged hard with all her strength.

Naruto didn't know it that time, that the Kyuubi saved her from having her lungs exploded by covering her in his chakra.

(And by extension, a poison from poisonous insects is no match to the exposure of the incredibly potent chakra, saved the poisoned and suicidal shinobi that Naruto had jump over a cliff in order to save. Of course, no one will know that Kurama contributed to the shinobi's survival.)

 **"Be thankful, brat."** Kurama growled, his eyes shut. He was inside his prison and had woken up for he sensed danger. He promptly continued his peaceful slumber after he gave a little boost of chakra―he didn't want to die, after all― to his host.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen; Sandaime Hokage was in his office, stamping paperwork upon paperwork as his advisors chuckled, having a quiet conversation.

"Where's Danzō?" he inquired the two, while lighting up his pipe.

Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura stared at each other and chuckled to themselves, seemingly had a topic that they could only understand.

"Nowhere, Hiruzen. Nowhere."

Now, while it was what Koharu and Homura would usually say whenever he was asking something concerning Danzō and his whereabouts; Hiruzen was worried. There's a growing dread in the pit of his stomach, but he ignored it in favor of staying civil to his advisors.

Out of the blue, in his front of him was Uchiha Itachi, kneeling before him.

"Uchiha Shisui is dead."

Hiruzen felt like storming into the village's not so secret organization base that was in underground Konoha and demanded an explanation, no matter outrageous it was. But he can't. He didn't have any evidence.

"Meet us at the usual room tomorrow," he said to the boy.

Itachi nodded and vanished from sight.

Hiruzen wanted to know his friend's reaction before taking any action towards him.

He was not naive. Not one bit.

* * *

 **Author's note: To be continued! I hope I can update more. See you!**

 **By the way, why is it there's only a few of Shisui x fem Naruto? I love this pairing, so I wanna read more of it. If anyone can tell a good fic of that pairing, tell me!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**

 **Note: Itachi has never said Shisui was his cousin, and Shisui never said that either. Keep it in mind that I watched the show, both manga and anime, in Japanese. The English dub/sub maybe has a different translation.**


	3. Chapter 3: Distress 「困難」

**Chapter 3: Distress**

Naruto kept her eyes from blinking too much as she watched the person she saved sleep. She still cannot believe the state he was in when she successfully pulled him out of the river.

* * *

.

.

.

Naruto gasped for air as she exited the river. She dragged the guy by the collar to the shore and started to examine him.

He was a teenager, between fifteen to eighteen year old. Short wavy spiky hair held back by black Konoha hitai-ate (forehead protector). Empty, bleeding eye sockets. Damaged back, ribs, and skull. Internal bleeding from the way blood seeped out from his mouth.

Naruto clenched her eyes shut, seemingly distraught. She opened them a second later, determined to fix whatever the hell this was.

She took a deep breath and started a sequence of hand seals for the Shousen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Technique).

She can do this. She had perfected her chakra control every night, since two years ago when she concluded that her control was not that good to perform a basic healing technique (it was horrible but she didn't acknowledge that). Since she had begun to observe the people at the hospital, she wanted the ability to almost heal any wounds and illness. No, she wanted to be able to heal _all wounds_ _and illnesses_.

In order to do that, she needed an almost perfect chakra control.

As she scanned her patient (the very first _real_ human patient, as she usually practiced with her dinner; namely fishes) her mind was searching for the answer to regenerate his eyes back. Not transplantation, no. Regenerating it back.

She knew there was no impossible thing ever in this world. But as she healing him she doubted she can make his eyes... regrow somehow.

Then an idea occurred to her when she glanced at her wet but not drenched backpack (it's waterproof) that was filled with her training scrolls.

Fūinjutsu.

She can do it. _She can do it_. She heard somewhere that Tsunade no Sannin can regrow her own severed hand, so why can't she?

As she spent the first hour healing his internal bleeding, broken bones and restarted his heart several times, she thought up the formula to regrow such delicate organ from scratch... no, not from scratch. She can use some of the eye tissue and blood that she was certain behind that empty lids.

 _'I'm an academy student_ ,' Naruto pursed her lips while she tried hard not to cry, ' _Why am I doing this? I must be sleeping now instead of doing what the medics do in the hospital. Yet, I'm grateful I have spent the time I can to observe them rather than do the pranks that I know will be useless in this kind of situation... but oh well. Awesome plans reserved for future pranks, I guess.'_

Her lips twitched as she remembered the particular incident where she accidentally witnessed a giant seal appeared on her stomach when she had used up half of her chakra.

"Who am I kidding? I'm not normal, right?" Naruto grinned, in an attempt to cheer up herself. Failing the moment her eyes landed on her patient, she sighed. A second later, she abruptly stopped healing him because this guy's heart had stopped beating again.

Naruto pushed his chest again and again with her hands coated in lightning chakra. Finally, after two minutes it started to beat again.

 _'It must be the shock the body experience,'_ she concluded. Because there was nothing wrong with the guy aside from the missing eyes and a still crooked nose that she still yet attended because a damaged skull and spine was more important than a crooked nose. On that note, the brain was the most important too.

To prevent him from getting a hypothermia, she carefully took out his shirt and covered him with a blanket she had brought with her. While folding the shirt, Naruto couldn't help but noted the giant red and white Uchiwa symbol on the back of his high-collared t-shirt.

Naruto expected this, really. But this was still a shock to her like it slapped her face. The one clan who she never saw its members because they avoided her to death except for the one that was in her class (and this guy now), because they cannot be near her (she knew why but chose not to indulge in that). The one clan that has its own compound on the far outskirts of the village since the Kyuubi's Attack and almost every night since one year ago exuded so many negative emotions that she was always uncomfortable sleeping at night because she always expected something from them ever since the discovery that she found three months ago.

Well, that explains why this Uchiha guy never approached her even with his interest in her. And also there's a unique chakra in his eyes that the other members don't have. Even though his eyes were gone, the chakra still existed behind the eyelids.

Naruto suddenly got a feel of what kind of person this guy was.

She smiled softly as she came up with a plan.

She was going to protect him.

* * *

Naruto kept her voice down as she grumbled and scratched her head while her eyes stared at the giant seal she managed to make for under two hours. She was missing something. She had already made the calculations for the size of his eye sockets, eyeballs, the genetic make-up, the blood she took from the guy, et cetera and now she was designing the seal to create the eyeballs. She just didn't want to screw this up, so she waited until this guy was awake to ask his opinion about it because, duh, it's his eyes. She didn't want to further screw up his already screwed up... eyes situation.

Naruto forced back a yawn. She was sleepy. She didn't sleep at all because she was too worried to even think of sleeping. She had spent almost half of her chakra healing that guy and a good portion of her energy were focused on running to rescue him. A good medic might be only spent a half of what she had spent to heal, but she was not a good medic. Converting her chakra to healing chakra was hard enough. To maintain her chakra that way for more than an hour was too damn hard.

As she stared at her seal design, she mulled the design over and over again until something clicked inside her head. She remembered something from the books that she had read. Somewhere, she read that yang chakra was life and that yin was the imagination... So, if she gave the seal the yin chakra and made it imagine the guy's eyeballs... and breathe life to it. It might have work.

The problem was she didn't know how to separate the two energy to feed the seal with. She sighed tiredly.

Too much thinking was not her style, she decided as she massaged her throbbing temples. She admitted a few times to herself that she was not a genius when it took more than a week to read a short article about fūinjutsu she wanted to fully comprehend. She just worked hard to cram information upon information that was related to her interest in her head. Naruto personally considered herself to be a hard worker, though that might be up for a debate for Sandaime-jiichan who was impressed with her talent in sensing. On an unrelated note, _she can't even produce a perfect bunshin yet_.

She just had to wait for the guy to wake up and hopefully the guy knew how to separate his chakra into yang and yin and help her in this.

Oh yeah, that reminded her. She had to conceal the guy's chakra and smell to hide him from the bad guys.

Thankfully, she had kept her pocket dimension seal in her backpack.

Hey, better safe than sorry, right?

* * *

Nara Shikamaru was just enjoying his nap when he noticed that a chalk made its way to his head. He dodged it just in time, but the action made him wide-awake.

"Nara Shikamaru! Do your test instead of snoozing off!"

Shikamaru mumbled out a 'yes' and grudgingly stared down at the test.

 _'Nope. Not going to graduate early, just nope,'_ he thought when he realized that the test was too advanced for this class. He assumed that this might be his mother somehow requesting it to the teachers to make him a little less lazy. Troublesome.

Sarutobi Asuma bit back a groan when he saw the boy went back to sleep. He didn't know how that Academy Teacher roped him to do this, he was seriously regretting of ever made a bet.

"Nara Shikamaru! Detention after this if you don't do your test!"

Shikamaru froze. No, not that either. He didn't want to face his mother's wrath when she knew that he didn't do the test automatically flunked it and got a detention.

No, just no.

He hurriedly wrote down his answers.

* * *

Shisui thought he was in heaven when he heard the voice.

"Oh, you're awake!" exclaimed the voice. "Hey, hey, can you separate your chakra into yang and yin?"

He must be in heaven. Or something. Because he was damn sure that he just killed himself off by jumping off a cliff (the place where Itachi and he trained and played when they were little, he chuckled at the irony of it). Nevertheless, he nodded because he can separate his chakra into yang and yin. He practiced that whenever he could, he was more adept at Yin though.

 _'Wait, can dead people use chakra?'_ he wondered and then proceed to nod at the direction of the voice despite his doubt.

"Great! Gimme some!" He heard the strangely familiar voice near him. "Please insert yin chakra into this seal." He felt the hand that was grabbing his hand and guided it to a paper. He complied without protest. "And... yang chakra into this seal!" He did just that with little difficulty because he rarely practiced with his yang chakra.

"Wow, you're awesome, ttebayo!" said the voice, a little exuberantly. "Teach me when you're healthy, will you?"

 _'What's going on? That voice sounded young and no females I've ever known have a boyish and childish verbal tick such as 'dattebayo','_ Shisui thought, pondering.

Soon, he came to a realization and voiced his conclusion. "Uzumaki Naruto...?" he trailed off, unsure.

"Yes? How do you know―oh," the voice― Naruto, coughed. "I'd kinda told you, didn't I?" Naruto said, sheepishly. "By the way, what's your name?"

If Shisui could blink, he would do that now. He felt his body lying flat on the ground, his wasn't wearing his shirt, and a blanket covering him. He wasn't dead?

"My name is Uchiha Shisui." He slowly started to sit up while holding his side, the blanket covering him slid down off of his shoulders. He can't see a thing, but he can sense chakra, so he can tell that he was safe here. Even if he didn't know where he was.

"Oh, great! Nice to meet you, Shisui-san!" Naruto chirped, her voice sounded so cheerful that Shisui was left to wonder on where did she get the energy to sound so energetic.

"Where am I?" he managed to croak out his question, despite his ragged breath because he was too quick when he got up. "Why am I not dead?"

Naruto was silent and then quietly uttered, "Well, I saved you." It was muttered under her breath, but Shisui's ears easily picked it up as without eyes, he relied more on his hearing

"Huh?" he voiced his confusion. "Why?" he whispered, his voice subdued.

"I don't want you to die, obviously!" Naruto stated, hotly. "I'm sorry if I was selfish, but I can't let someone die on my watch!"

Shisui hummed uncomfortably as he shifted to the side. "On your watch...? Did you see it?" He leaned against the wall behind him. He didn't want to talk about his supposed 'suicide' but... Naruto here said she saved him. He owed her even though he didn't want to be saved. He even told Itachi not to stop him.

Naruto blinked and elaborated.

"No... erm, I can feel your chakra?" she said, hesitantly, like she was testing the water. "That's why I know that you're in danger... I guess?" She sounded unsure, even to herself.

"Oh." Shisui didn't know what to say to that. He was sore, blind, and exhausted beyond belief. And now his object of affection (inside, he denied that ridiculous part) was in front of him and saved him from his death. What he was supposed to say in a situation like this?

Silence occurred for about a minute before Naruto opened her mouth.

"So, you're Uchiha Shisui, right? That means," Naruto cleared her throat trying to clear out the awkward atmosphere too, "you're Shunshin no Shisui?" Shisui gave a quiet hum, too exhausted to answer properly. Naruto took that as a 'yes' and asked him again to avoid silence, "You're super fast?" Shisui grunted. "Like the Yondaime Hokage?"'

Shisui was contemplating his fifteen years of life and replied, "Actually, I idolized Nidaime and Yondaime for their speed a bit back when I was in the academy. I wanted to be as fast and strong like them."

"So... you want to be Hokage?" Naruto's tone was serious, so unlike the time where she screamed that she will be a Hokage in the middle of the village. Nonetheless, Shisui never interacted with her directly, so he took a note that a girl as young as she was could sound like a miniature adult. Plus, when he saw her the first time, he thought she was close to his age because of her height and the angle he was looking.

"No? Maybe? I don't know." Shisui didn't know why he kept answering her questions. "I've never thought about that." Honestly, since he could remember, the village's safety to him was first, and everything else was second. Did that mean he wanted to be Hokage? He seriously didn't know.

"Well, you can be the Hokage and stop the coup, you know. You stopped Kirigakure from attacking the village, right? Just like the Yondaime with Iwagakure! I'm sure that Hokage-jiichan will consider it, dattebayo."

Shisui's entire body went slack.

"What?" He can't believe his own ears. They were not taken out like his eyes were, right? "What did you say?" His hands trembled. Because, because Naruto knew. The light knowing something so dark, _how_?

Naruto's expression was grim while she explained how she knew of the Uchiha's coup d'etat.

* * *

Naruto knew of the coup that the Uchiha clan planned. How can't she? Whenever she checked Shisui's chakra he was distressed but fine whenever he was under the Uchiha's Naka Shrine. And he was always surrounded by his clan members that always exuded hostility so powerful that she almost thought they would fight each other to death under that shrine.

It was that what made her realize that her ability was not normal. Because people don't notice it as she does (she grimaced inwardly, because it was another evidence of her being not normal other than the giant seal on her stomach).

Naruto was a curious child by nature. One day, approximately three months ago, when she had enough not knowing what's going on that she went there in plain midday (because the meeting was always at night, and of course she suppressed her chakra completely) and placed a seal that can enable her to eavesdrop on their conversations. The meeting room was under the seventh tatami mat, and she placed the seal at the back of the tatami and made it invincible because she didn't want their Sharingan to find it. If they find it, it will be bad, Naruto's instinct told her. It wasn't a prank that was designed to catch someone's attention.

What she found that night were something that speaks a lot of the village and the Uchiha clan. She was pale the entire time she heard their screams of taking over the village, what was originally theirs and all that. She found in all of that, only two chakra signatures were not excited, angry or eager. One was the person that was seemingly curious about her but never approached her for unknown reasons, namely Uchiha Shisui, and the other one was unknown. Possibly Shisui's friend or something, as they liked to spar and training together a lot (she swore to herself that she wasn't a stalker and never going to be one).

Naruto was conflicted. She managed to know one of the village's propaganda, and she was overwhelmed by it, so much that she skipped the academy that day. By all means, she was seven, and even though she wanted to think of the Uchiha clan as evil (excluding Shisui and his friend) with their plan to take over the village, which can cause a civil war, she knew the village was in the wrong too (she was feared and hated by the villagers, after all, of course, she can think of the scenario where the village discriminate the Uchiha like what they do to her or something like that).

So she told Hokage-Jiichan when she was too stressed over it.

Apparently, the Sandaime already knew about the coup when she informed him while he visited her apartment. Jiichan said not to worry and not to tell anyone, but she still worried because their hostility was still there as plain as day for her to feel it. It was that day when Jiichan said that her ability was similar (but not quite the same) to one of his teachers that she asked him if his teacher was related to her.

"Yes, her name was Uzumaki Mito. She was Hashirama-sama's wife."

She was so surprised by Jiichan's reply she didn't ask anything else.

As she told all of this to Shisui, she noticed that his chakra radiated his many emotions, but the primary one was fear. Why did he feel fear? Oddly, while wanting to know the answer to that, Naruto didn't want to ask him, so she asked a different question than the one she had in mind.

"Shisui-san? Are you okay?" Naruto wanted to slap herself as soon as she asked this. Of course, he was not okay, judging by his chakra going crazy flips and all that.

Shisui nodded stiffly, still not acknowledging that she knew about the dark side of the village. The one information that he didn't want to spread to anyone other than Sandaime-sama and his... advisors (he mentally removed Danzou from the list of his 'trusted people'), was known to this girl. If he can erase her memory of knowing now, he would do it in a heartbeat, unethical or not. He was that irrational, he could acknowledge that about himself.

Naruto huffed when she found him still in denial and scooted over to his side. She placed her hand to his stomach and scanned him with medical chakra; to ease his physical and mental energy; in case there was something wrong with him. Finding nothing was wrong, aside from his missing eyes, she asked him with all the seriousness a seven-year-old can possess.

"Will you accept my help, Shisui-san?"

* * *

 **Author Note: Phew! To be continued again! This chapter is a pain, I tell you! Because there was one guest demanded 'update faster' and I was so troubled because, look, I updated once a day. How is that not fast? I'm writing this not for you guys, okay? I just want more Shisui x FemNaruto fanfictions, that's it. Why was this guy demanding faster update and not giving his own opinion for this story? Is my story that shitty or something? Tell me if I did something wrong, and I will consider to fix it. Just... ugh. Okay, I'm irrational but something about 'update faster' review makes me want to not update at all. Hmph.**

 **By the way, that doesn't mean you guys can't demand a faster update. Just... not do that by giving me the typical 'update faster' review, please. That will make my not updating at all. All I want is a decent review, why can't you guys do it? *sigh* Sorry, I feel like you guys don't appreciate the time that I make to update this once a day. So, yeah, I'd say I have the right to rant this to you guys.**

 **If I didn't update once a day, either I was sick or I was dead. Choose :)**

 **See you!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**

 **Edit: I was sick when I made this fic. So I was joking when I said that 'if I didn't update once a day, I was sick or I was dead' because all I could do those days were writing and reading fanfics. I'm s** **orry for being so dark :( And obviously, I won't be able to update once a day anymore because now I can move around~. Tee-hee.**


	4. Chapter 4: Firelight「火影」

**Uchiha Shisui: 14 years old and 11 months (will turn 15 in October 19th)**

 **Uzumaki Naruto: 7 years old (just turned 7 in October 10th)**

 **Uchiha Itachi: 12 years old (June 9th)**

 **Sarutobi Hiruzen: 63 years old (February 8th)**

 **Chapter 4: Firelight**

Today's morning seemed ordinary to Hiruzen until Uzumaki Naruto entered his office.

"Hokage-jiichan."

Naruto stared at him intensely as she closed the door behind her. All the while, ignoring the panicked look the Sandaime's secretary was giving her before she closed the door and locked it.

"What brings you here, Naruto-kun?" Hiruzen questioned, as he looked up from his paperwork. "You have the academy at 9 to attend to, right?"

"I will be at the academy today, Jiichan. I promise. Well... um, I know this sounds weird, but hear me out." Naruto took a deep breath and slowly signed 'I have my stalker with me' with the Konoha ANBU sign language that someone taught her just before she came here.

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, his mind was full of questions on how Naruto could have possibly known that.

"Naruto-kun, where do you learn that?" Hiruzen inquired, rigidly. Inside he was intrigued by the fact that Naruto knew ANBU sign language and the meaning of said ANBU sign language that Naruto just did. Hiruzen knew who Naruto's 'stalker' was and the fact that he was dead.

Naruto closed her eyes, concentrating. She can feel and 'see' at least four people; the Hokage Guard Platoon, and one that was not either an official ANBU nor the Hokage Guard Platoon judging by the seal in his tongue. She grimaced.

"Can we talk in private, Jii-chan?" Naruto grinned uneasily, as she continued, "I have something cool to show you!"

Naruto's eyes flickered lightly to the roof above as she signed 'Uchiha'.

Hiruzen's caught the meaning and with a hand seal, he activated a seal that was meant to make a barrier around the room, making it temporarily safe from prying ears and eyes.

Naruto still can feel the Ne ANBU there, so she made a rat hand seal to activate her own seal to doubled the privacy.

Hiruzen knew about her prowess in Fuuinjutsu, he was the one who introduced it to her after all; but he was impressed at how everything outside of the barrier was black and devoid of chakra. It meant that either outside and inside can feel, see, nor feel chakra at all.

"So, Jiichan," Naruto squirmed in her place, "you know Uchiha Shisui is my observer, right?"

Hiruzen nodded and motioned Naruto to continue when he saw Naruto was hesitant to continue.

"Um, you know that I know of the coup d'etat, right? Well, I kinda have a suggestion dattebayo." Naruto took a deep breath. "Why not make one of the Uchiha your successor? A trustworthy one, that is."

Hiruzen cleared his throat and he spoke, "Naruto-kun, what you are saying is; I need to make one of the Uchiha the Godaime?" Naruto nodded, her face expressed a positive answer. "That's impossible, Naruto-kun. All the adults in the Uchiha Clan supported my fall, and I can't just give them the 'easy' way to control the village by making one of them the Godaime."

Naruto pouted and exclaimed, "Jii-chan, that's why I said 'Uchiha Shisui' earlier."

Hiruzen widened his eyes. "What are you saying, Naruto-kun?" He leaned back to his chair with a pained expression etched on his face, the image of his old friend's grandson on the back of his mind. "I have a report from one of the Uchiha Clan that he is," his eyes darkened, "dead."

She shook her head and affirmed, "No, he's not, Jii-chan. He's alive."

"Naruto-kun, what did you say?" he leaned forward, of course skeptical witj his granddaughter-figure's statement.

Naruto rummaged her backpack and took out a big scroll. She opened them, bit her thumb and smeared some blood on the scroll did the rat hand-seal.

Suddenly, in front of Hiruzen, stood Uchiha Shisui, with his eyes closed and a wariness etched on his face.

Shisui took a deep breath and dropped down to one knee with his right fist to the floor.

"Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen stood up, alarmed but a look of understanding dawned in his eyes as he stared intently at his subordinate.

"Report," Hiruzen commanded. He had figured that if the Shisui in front of him was real, Naruto was in too deep with this whole thing. Whatever Shisui would say to him, Naruto would have a clearance just because she somehow had Uchiha Shisui with her.

"Uchiha Shisui, registration number; 011632. I was going to use Kotoamatsukami, before Danzō," Shisui didn't bother to hide his contempt by not using any honorific and stressed the name, but still had the pang of sadness as the elder was his grandfather's teammate, "took my right eye and disrupted my mission."

With that, Hiruzen's belief that Danzō can be redeemed was crushed to pieces.

* * *

Itachi was forced to calm his nerves with eating dango, _dango_ , at the Naka River's dock. He was supposed to be planning something, _anything_. Yet, he didn't find the will to think or do anything right now.

As he ate his last stick of dango, he noticed his Crow approaching from the distance. He almost lost his balance when it was in front of him.

Shisui's eye that he had implanted inside the Crow's left eye was gone.

His stomach clenched tightly, already assuming the worst, and grabbed the letter that was tied to the Crow's foot and read the letter carefully.

 _Hi, Itachi. This would probably surprise you, but i_ _t seems even after the stunt I've pulled last night, I can't leave all of this to you. After all, I know that this is too much, even for you. I'm sorry if I hurt you because of it. I decide to live to see the day when the Uchiha name cleared. I will help you, so don't go around and do everything by yourself, alright? I promise I will contact you again later._

 _Shisui_

Itachi burned the letter to ash as soon as he finished reading.

He quietly cried while holding his half-eaten dango.

* * *

Naruto scowled. She did have an inkling as to why the villagers ignored her existence to the best to their ability or fear her to death, but this was ludicrous.

"Why didn't you tell me that there was a test yesterday, sensei?" Naruto forced herself to speak calmly, even with his cold eyes and such powerful negative emotions directed at her made her want to run from this place as far as possible. "I didn't know because yesterday was October 10th, and that was a national holiday."

Tashiro was trying his best to ignore what was in front of him. But he gave up when Naruto didn't move at all from her position.

"I had informed the class. It's your fault if you didn't attend said class."

Was that when she kind of skipped classes because she was too stressed over the Uchiha? She didn't even skip, the Hokage jii-chan, her guardian, had sent a notice to the academy that she was sick that day.

"Please let me take the supplementary test!"

"I told you, I don't have time for it."

Naruto gritted her teeth, holding in the contempt when she heard his cold tone. She already flunked the test? Just like that?

"Can you allow her to take the supplementary test?"

Tashiro stood up as he glared at the newcomer. Naruto stepped back and eyed the two of them, uncertain.

"Iruka, what are you―"

"Tashiro, please consider."

Naruto glanced between Tashiro and Iruka. They seemed to be communicating with rapid hand signs, which made her curious and made a mental note to learn what sign language they were using; because they were different than the ANBU sign language and Konoha Police sign language.

"Fine! Why don't you test her then?" With that, Tashiro―her homeroom teacher with no common sense whatsoever― stormed out of the office.

Iruka, who she knew as the ninjutsu and taijutsu teacher, sighed deeply and then looked at her. Naruto was squirming in her place under his stare.

"Do you like ramen?"

Naruto's eyes brightened.

* * *

Naruto couldn't believe that Iruka-sensei was a very generous person. He had bought her 5 bowls of miso ramen with pork cutlets. That was almost the amount Jii-chan always bought for her when they were eating together at the Ichiraku. She had found her favorite teacher today.

Naruto shook her head as she stared at the orange sky. It was by this time that she woke up and prepared to save Shisui yesterday.

"Oh, crap!"

Naruto had almost forgotten that she left Shisui at her apartment with nothing but cup ramen in the cupboard and milk in her fridge. She had to go shopping then.

She processed to buy the ingredients to make miso soup, tamagoyaki, and onigiri. Nothing fancy because she was broke this month.

"I'm home." She entered her apartment, her stomach doing flip-flop as she placed her sandals at the genkan (entrance hall).

"Welcome home, Naruto. Oh, you bought some food, I take it?"

Shisui was sitting at her bed with only his left eye opened. She knew he can't open his right eye, because of a certain elder, but his lone midnight colored eye made her stomach felt like butterflies.

Naruto nodded with a watery smile. She was going to cry when she heard the 'welcome home' from Shisui. No one ever welcomed her home from her own apartment. Certainly, this was a first to her.

"Well, let's eat! Or... are you going to cook?" Shisui asked Naruto with a playful tone. "I hope you're a good cook if you were."

Naruto walked to the kitchen with a dark aura as she shouted, "Of course I am!"

Shisui laughed as he offered his help.

* * *

Hiruzen sagged his shoulders as he stared outside the window. He was waiting for Jiraiya to come and help him. Danzō was too dangerous for him to handle. He called Jiraiya, even Tsunade he called back by threatening to make her a nuke-nin and being hunted for the rest of her life.

His priority was to not endanger his people. After that, he was going to take back Shisui's eye from Danzō with the help from Jiraiya and Tsunade.

He was going to show Danzō why it was a bad idea to went about from under the Hokage's nose.

But only for today, he was going to mourn for the Danzō that he befriended a long time ago.

* * *

 **Author's Note: To be continued! I hope you guys enjoyed it~ If not, well, okay. I know this story isn't for everyone. Sometimes I think that this story plot itself was absurd, but well... hey, this is fanfiction. I can make Naruto barf dragons for all I care lol.**

 **See you!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**

 **P.S. I don't have a beta and English is not my first or even a second language, so I hope you guys understand the grammar mistakes or typos that this story has because when my English improved, I will fix the mistakes. Although, to be honest, I don't know how the beta-thing works.**


	5. Chapter 5: Comrades 「仲間」

**Fun Fact: Akimichi Clan is one of the noble clans in Konoha, alongside with the Aburame, the Hyuuga, and the Uchiha Clan. The Yamanaka clan is not included and even the Senju clan is not either. I don't know what Kishimoto was thinking when he let that information out :(**

 **Chapter 5: Comrades**

Shikamaru was glad. He was so glad that he didn't say 'troublesome' for the entire day. He managed to not graduate early, even though he was moved to a class that was full of students that were two years older than him. He didn't complain because he would be with Chouji, and his calculation was correct when he answered the test with the accuracy of 80% right answers. His goal, once he thought of Chouji, was to be in the same class as him.

Let it be known that he and Chouji entered the Academy at a different age. Everyone can enter their children at any time, even in peacetime. The decision was entirely up to the parents or the guardian. Once the parents entered their children, it was up to the teachers to see if they were ready or not to be in the Academy, with the help of academy entrance tests.

Unfortunately, Shikamaru was lazy. His parents thought it would be best to wait until he was six, the standard age to enter. Chouji was four when he entered (Shikamaru still can't wrap his head around that one. How could Chouza-san entered his child at that age was beyond him) and that made Chouji a target at bullying, especially with his rather large build.

When Shikamaru 'saved' Chouji from the bullies and befriended him, he was disappointed, to say the least. His first friend was in a different class, and that brought out a new level of laziness to Shikamaru for days. He moped about it, and the reason was somehow known to his mother. At first, he didn't want to take the test because he assumed they were a graduation test, out of laziness, but then he remembered Chouji and decided to save himself from his mother's wrath because he would waste her efforts if he didn't at least try to move up a few grades.

That was how he was in front of a new class with an uninterested look on his face.

"I'm Nara Shikamaru," he introduced himself. He briefly enjoyed the irritated expression of his teacher when he purposely let out a big yawn. "Nice to meet you all."

With a chorus of 'nice to meet you too' from his new classmates, he was off to find his own seat. Of course, he chose the seat beside Chouji, where else would he sit next to? It was empty, so he didn't need to 'coax' someone to sit somewhere else.

Tashiro, the homeroom teacher, shook his head at his new student's behavior. It was rude for Nara Shikamaru to choose his own seat, but he let it go for the sake of saving his face. After all, he didn't want to be near the 'Kyuubi' brat, that was seated beside the honorable Akimichi Chouji, and somehow lost his composure in front of the two clan heirs.

"Okay, let's begin, class. Open the page 88 about elemental natures..."

* * *

Tsunade felt her patience was running thin since her patient just won't _stop_ moving and talking even after being told not to for so many times.

For someone nicknamed Shunshin no Shisui and feared across the five elemental countries (including Hi no Kuni), he surprisingly had a little phobia about hospital, and medics in general (something about the boy's father died of an illness in the hospital a few years back, but Tsunade couldn't care less, her parents were dead in the battlefield, and that was worse in Tsunade's opinion).

"Shut up and stay still!" Tsunade growled out as she gripped the boy's shoulders tightly, her eyes giving a menacing glare, obviously didn't have the patience for the boy's antics anymore.

Feeling an impending death was near if he didn't obey (he felt an incredible pain from the way Tsunade griped his shoulders, and certainly felt the glare even though his eyes were closed), Shisui relented as he shut his mouth tightly and stopped moving, albeit rigidly. He was only ramblings anyway.

Tsunade's eyebrow twitched when she heard Shizune and Naruto giggling in the background at Shisui's antics.

It had been almost 2 months since Danzō's downfall. With the help of Jiraiya, Hiruzen managed to defeat Danzō without falling to Shisui's Kotoamatsukami that was in Danzō's possession at the time. They planned to ambush, not to confront; something Hiruzen had learned from his past confrontation with Orochimaru).

Of course, Jiraiya's return to the village was a secret the entire time to not tip off Danzou and made him passive in his activities just because Jiraiya was there in the village. Danzou was always cautious whenever Jiraiya was in close proximity because of a particular accident related to Orochimaru (Jiraiya blamed Danzou for his teammate/best friend's betrayal). Jiraiya was always eager if he found even the slightest bit of evidence of Danzou's dirty works, so Danzou was always being extra careful whenever he was around.

Unfortunately, they didn't manage to recover Shisui's right eye that was stolen by Danzō. They had speculated that Danzō had made sure to destroy that along with his own body when one of the ANBU (Itachi) 'accidentally' cut off Danzou's arms simultaneously before he could do anything (when they recovered the right arm that the ANBU had cut off, they were horrified with its rather unpleasant appearance).

(Itachi considered himself as a pacifist, but even he couldn't resist to put down the one who almost cornered his best friend to his death, a village elder with the village's 'best interest' or not).

"It's done," Tsunade announced after she took off the bandages around Shisui's eyes. "It seems to be a success. Congratulations, now you have a pair of working eyes, Uchiha brat." Tsunade's eyebrow was twitching when she said those lines. She had had enough of looking at blood. Yes, her phobia was mostly cured, but it doesn't mean she was comfortable enough to perform a surgery.

Damn Uchiha brat for having Hokage as a goal. She couldn't help but remember Nawaki and Dan when she looked at the boy, declaring he was going to become Hokage to protect Konoha and his clan, when she asked why would he want to do the surgery when there's a chance it could be a fluke and she had warned him to not have high hope. The boy simply smiled as he stated that he trusted Naruto, who made him choose the goal of Hokage, to not fail.

Tsunade sincerely hoped that those two would not end like her and Dan.

Shisui winced at the pain in his eyes but decided not to complain about it. It was Naruto who made a seal that contained his yang and yin chakra and somehow made a pair of eyes out of thin air with the help of Naruto's high ratio of yang chakra, but Tsunade was the one who made it work.

So, yes, he was grateful enough not to say any Senju-related jokes in front of this almost fifty-year-old woman. However tempted he was because when in pain―Shisui was one of those who liked to joke around to ignore it― he still had the common sense to not say anything stupid in front of the Senju woman that could crush a mountain with a single punch.

Noticing that the Uchiha was still on the bed, Tsunade said, "Now, hush, go get your crying friend out of here."

Shisui opened his eyes only to see a crying but laughing Naruto in his line of sight.

 _"Someday, there will be someone by your side who will cry and laugh for you... or with you, whichever you prefer. Just be patient until that day comes, Shisui."_

With a relieved smile, he walked towards the exit with Naruto in tow.

* * *

Naruto, who dragged Shisui to the hospital (with her chakra chains to not let him use Shunshin), sent a Kage Bunshin (Shadow Clone) to attend the academy (a trick she had learned from Itachi-san) because she had to attend Shisui's appointment. No way she was going to skip Tashiro's class and have a repeat performance of the last year incident where she had almost failed the mandatory Genjutsu class because of, in her opinion, her negligence.

She was restless because today was the day that Shisui would receive the eyeball that she had made a while back. She didn't know if it will work like a normal eye or not, but she had high hope. Tsunade was the one who examined the eye and transplanted it. For good measure, she pleaded the woman to make it work and even bribed the woman with money (she went overboard there, but when it came to Shisui, common sense and logic were easily thrown out the window).

It seemed that she worried over nothing as Shisui was fine and he could see perfectly with both eyes again.

As they chatted on the way to a training ground, Naruto thought about the Uchiha and how happy she was that things went down nicely with both the village and the Uchiha. Evidently, some of the peaceful ones, like Itachi-san, went from constantly on the edge to tranquility after Jii-chan announced to the village that he would choose an Uchiha for the next Hokage.

* * *

The Uchiha had been, mostly, calm for a few months now when Hiruzen decided to hold a meeting with them and he let out a hint that he considered an Uchiha to become his successor, though he didn't give a name, he promised the clan that if they worked together, no blood would spill between the clan and the village.

It was a subtle hint about how he knew of the coup so maybe they would stop. Yes, it risked the village's safety, but Hiruzen thought it was worth it when he saw several Uchiha 'adults' (a genin or above was considered an adult) went pale and a few even did a perfect imitation of a fish out of water.

With Hiruzen announcing to the village that an Uchiha ANBU had defeated Danzou, the Uchiha clan can finally rest as the Hokage blamed Danzou for the Kyuubi's Attack. Basically, Hiruzen reluctantly made Danzou the scapegoat for everything that went wrong within the village, like the now shitty academy curriculum for example (indirectly Danzou's), the almost-war-with Kirigakure (Danzou's work in some way), the failed Kumo's peace delegation (it was really Danzou's), etc.

The village's doubt about the Uchiha was gone like it didn't exist in the first place. With one of the clan members had managed to defeat someone who was a powerful shinobi and politician, the almost 40 years long doubt and distrust the village had since the Nidaime's reign, was replaced with respect and a bit fear as a few clans felt the Uchiha was given too much power, with the KMPF and one of the Uchiha as Godaime candidate and all (they suspected it to be Uchiha Itachi, even though he was the heir, still 12, and a chuunin, and a few suspected Uchiha Shisui, because the boy was honest to god too famous to ignore with the bingo books, marked him as almost S-ranked shinobi at 14, and he was already a jōnin, albeit a new one).

It was unfortunate that when one problem was solved, a new problem surfaced.

Like, the revealed rottenness of Konoha's Root.

* * *

Naruto offered a spare room in her apartment to Shisui a few months ago, when Naruto turned ten in October. It was only made official because Shisui kept dropping by ever since three years ago. An exasperated and fed-up Itachi, who frequently had to fetch Shisui from her apartment in order to get some training with his friend, was the one who actually suggested it. Since Naruto was a genin in April, she could live with someone else that wasn't her guardian.

Shisui was an orphan who lived by himself since he was eleven, so when a fellow orphan offered him a room and homemade food (Naruto's cooking was more edible than his), he went for it in an instant. Shisui still uses his mission money for utilities and fast food, but he still pitches in for monthly groceries.

Shisui couldn't help but feeling like they had just avoided a disaster since the whole discovery about Danzō-is-an-eye-stealer-creep thing a few years ago. If it wasn't for Naruto, he wouldn't be here, in Naruto's apartment, eating breakfast prepared by Naruto, relaxing while reading a book about chakra theory.

It was almost like they were a married couple or something.

 _'Bad thoughts!'_ Shisui abruptly stopped that train of thoughts. They were eight years apart in age, how could he even think about marriage between them so easily? Shisui's shoulders sagged as he put down the book and sipped his cup of hot chocolate to clear his mind. It had worked only because it was too damn hot that his tongue was burning for a second.

After Shisui was done with his breakfast, which was just a simple tamago kake gohan (raw egg on top of hot rice with soy sauce) and miso soup, Naruto came out of the bathroom. As soon as she smelled the sweet smell of chocolate, she frowned and walked to him with arms crossed.

"Shisui! I said no sugar in the morning!" she scolded him and unceremoniously snatched the mug in his hand and gulped down the hot chocolate herself.

"You're drinking it yourself!" Shisui protested, his hand in the air. His daily chocolate intake was cut down ever since he started living here. It was just not possible for him to not drink it every day.

"I have a good metabolism!" Naruto countered with a no-nonsense air around her as she began to eat her breakfast, which was different than Shisui's; a toast with a sunny-side-up and generous amount of black pepper sprinkled on top. It was a new cuisine that was brought over to Konoha from the rich Kumogakure that Naruto had started to try on this year.

Shisui exhaled deeply, instantly regretting the day when he decided to teach Naruto about nutrients and whatnot. Before he taught her, the girl's breakfast consisted of cup ramen, while lunch and dinner were Ichiraku ramen (Ichiraku Ramen is healthy but there is no variety), for almost every day. He didn't know that it would backfire on himself like this. He needed his sugar in the morning, dammit.

Well, he can always find Itachi and drag the boy to the nearest Japanese sweets shop later when Naruto was out.

Once Naruto was finished with her breakfast, Shisui started a conversation to fill the silence.

"So, tell me about your teammates."

Naruto sighed as she grumbled, "One is your asshole cousin and the other one is a lazy sloth."

"That's not really nice, Naruto."

Naruto glared when she heard his chiding tone but she kept silent as she stood on her opinion. Uchiha Sasuke was an asshole, that was a fact. Nara Shikamaru... he was a typical lazy Nara but not an asshole, so she opted to call him 'sloth' because he walked like one.

She almost call Shisui 'girly sissy eyelashes' for his long eyelashes and Itachi 'old lady face' but that had been put to stop when Shisui kept silence whenever she called him that, and Itachi always responded with 'whiskers' (something she detested because it reminded her of the mischievous cat, Tora, who she once chased after because she painted the Hokage Tower a neon orange because she was tired of blowing the fishes in her attempts of learning iryoujutsu).

She finally had learned her lesson to not call someone with a nickname without their's permission. She didn't like it whenever Itachi called her 'whiskers' and she didn't exactly want Shisui to ignore her because she didn't have a clue it was unacceptable to call someone with a nickname without his/her permission.

But one day, Sasuke called her 'usuratonkachi' because of that bloody one time when he had moved up to her class and took her seat.

Ever since that day, Sasuke was an asshole in her opinion.

As for Shikamaru... it was because the sloth never even bothered to talk to her. Not even once. Even Chouji sometimes strike a conversation with her. So, Shikamaru earned that nickname.

"Your jōnin instructor is Kakashi-san, right?" Shisui snickered at his own inside joke. "Sucks to be you, Naruto."

Naruto clicked her tongue and proceeded to dump all the dishes in the sink and gestured Shisui to wash all that as she stomped out of the apartment, not wanting to be a victim of Shisui's good mood. She could see it if she was there any longer Shisui would keep on and on about her and her life in general.

Though she wouldn't admit it to him yet, Shisui's presence in her life made her keep going strong even with the glares and whispers the villagers still does whenever she's out on the street.

* * *

 **To be Continued!**

 **Author's Note: Phew! It took a long time to write this because I feel I'm not good at writing. But heh, I've tried. That matters, right?**

 **To clarify, Naruto is 10 and Shisui is 18 at the end of the chapter. Naruto graduated with Sasuke, Chouji, and Shikamaru at the age of 10 (same as Minato). Team 7 consists of Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Kakashi. Itachi is 15 and a jōnin.**

 **Usuratonkachi: Sasuke comes from a noble clan, he wouldn't be saying an insult like 'aho/baka' casually. This is a** **polite way of saying 'slow-witted'. Literal meaning is 'thin hammer'. Thin hammer is useless to hammer something down, isn't it?**

 **Now, the Naruto fandom seems to believe that 'teme' is an insult... no, it's not. It's like 'kisama' and 'onore'. Yep. It's a rude way to say 'you'. But... Tobirama uses 'kisama' in the manga, and in his case** **,** **it's polite because it's an honorific language. Japanese likes confusing learners, it seems. ( T.T.)**

 **See ya next chapter!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**


	6. Omake 「お負け」

**Timeline: Five months or so after Danzou's downfall**

 **Omake: Start**

Shisui was forced to use Kotoamatsukami in one of the missions he did with Itachi. Naturally, Itachi was intrigued as it didn't match his knowledge of the jutsu's info.

"I believe it took ten years to use it again once used. Why can you use it just now?"

"Ugh... no. Who told you that?"

"The Crow," Itachi answered. The Crow, Shisui's faithful battle partner who later had become Itachi's battle partner as well.

Shisui eyed his companion, scrutinizing him. "You've used my eye already?"

"Yes, I used it on Danzō." Itachi nodded.

"You did what now?" Shisui stared at Itachi calculatingly. "Huh, so that's why," he muttered. He mussed his hair as he stared intently at Itachi. "Itachi, I ask you to keep this a secret. This ability of mine is too powerful I feared it every time I use it, which thank goodness, I've had only used a few times."

Itachi hummed uncertainly as he gestured Shisui to explain.

He shifted his eyes as he elaborated, "Basically, I can spam this technique as long I have the chakra for it."

Shisui coughed when Itachi was doing a good impression of being a statue for almost a minute.

"... are you serious, Shisui?" Itachi bit out, voice laced with a barely hidden incredulity.

Shisui was out of words that he just nodded and palmed his face.

After a long silence between them, Shisui huffed exasperatedly.

"That's way too overpowered, I know."

"I thank you for not abusing such technique." Itachi deadpanned as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Otherwise, I shudder to think someone with bad intentions spamming this technique."

Shisui stared blankly at his cousin for a few seconds, before he let out a nervous chuckle as a foreboding feeling rushing through his being. "Haha, Itachi, don't jinx it."

 **Somewhere**

'Madara' stared at the vial in his hand. What he focused was the inside. It was a Mangekyō Sharingan eyeball with a unique design that he stole before someone's untimely, although deserved, death.

He smirked.

' _Time to replace the 'borrowed' left eye._ '

* * *

 **Omake: End**

 **The information below is not canon. It is made by me because no way the original user of a Mangekyō Sharingan (Shisui) is below someone with Senju cells (Danzou). Maybe Itachi lied in the canon or it depends on what human/animal that uses the eye that Shisui gave to Itachi. Who knows.**

 **Uchiha Shisui: With his chakra reserves, he can use Kotoamatsukami thrice a day without collapsing.**

 **Someone with no Senju cells nor an Uchiha blood who stole his eyes: Once a year.**

 **Someone with Senju cells: Once a day (Danzō).**

 **Someone who is an Uchiha that stole it: Once in half a year.**

 **An Uchiha with Senju cells: Basically as long as he has chakra like the original owner.**

 **An animal: Ranging from five years to twenty years, depending on their size? Their chakra? Ugh, who knows.**

 **A crow: Once in a decade.**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**


	7. Chapter 6: Mirror 「鏡」

**Chapter 6: Mirror**

If it hadn't been for Naruto, who he took care of since she was a babe, he wouldn't even consider this option.

She suggested for _Uchiha Shisui_ to become his successor.

(Hiruzen wanted to see his sensei's, the Nidaime, grave to see if he was rolling after Naruto dropped the figurative bomb. His mentor wasn't shy at admitting his rather biased opinion about the Uchiha, and he proved it by giving them the authority to manage the Police Force all by themselves; something Hiruzen could see that it was one main factor as to why the Uchiha was being prejudiced against. He himself was influenced, along with his teammates and Danzou, who had greatly idolized the man.)

Naruto didn't know this, but just being a Jinchuuriki, her words held power. In addition to that, he raised her since she was a babe. Of course, he held an attachment to her, and he treated her like she was his grand-daughter.

He had always known that Naruto was out-spoken like her mother was but he thought she at least took after her father a little bit when he saw that Naruto was more thoughtful than her mother was. But he had found out that day, to his utter dismay, that she used words as her mother used hers.

Which meant, they used theirs carelessly.

" _Make Minato the Yondaime and I will stay in Konoha until the war ends!"_

Kushina had said that, hadn't she? When Kushina wanted to join the war again for the first time in two years, simply because one of her husband's students was killed in action. He refused, of course, and it resulted in Minato having the backing of a Jinchuuriki to become the one of the candidates for the Yondaime position.

Orochimaru didn't have it. Minato did.

Hiruzen chose the one who was trusted by the Jinchuuriki.

(Albeit, it was not that simple. Orochimaru proved to be not fit to be Hokage when he turned reclusive, and he had developed a somewhat disturbingly ambiguous moral when he had not been looking).

When he thought of Uchiha Shisui, he also thought of Uchiha Kagami, who was the only Uchiha in the Nidaime's Guard Platoon back in the First Great Ninja War.

Not many know of this, but Kagami was his close friend. Kagami was even in his council, which only contains his old teammates now before he died at 25 years of age.

Now that he knew what Danzou was capable of, it might be possible that Danzou stole Kagami's eye/eyes because Kagami's death was when he did a mission with Danzou. The despicable man always kept an eye on Kagami's descendants, including Shisui. That might be how Danzou knew that Kagami's bloodline had strong Sharingan.

Once Shisui dropped the 'Kotoamatsukami' bomb on him and his advisors, it was just a matter of time before Danzou tried to have it, itching to have the power himself with the excuse that he could protect Shisui's eyes better than the owner himself.

No matter how morbid it was, many people were thankful that Danzou had finally met his demise.

If he were honest, himself included.

* * *

"Hokage?!" Jiraiya glanced over to Hiruzen's side. "That brat?" he pointed at the sheepish-looking Shisui who was standing beside Hiruzen. "Why?" asked Jiraiya, sounding almost desperate.

Hiruzen sighed tiredly and responded, "Jiraiya, surely you understand I can't keep doing this job forever, right?"

"But that doesn't mean you can dump the job to an Uchiha brat!" Jiraiya narrowed his eyes, and said, "If you are that desperate, you can make Tsunade the Godaime since she's in the village! Or, or, Minato's brat Kakashi! Or your own son! Anyone, even Gai!"

Shisui scratched the back of his head, taken aback Jiraiya's reaction. "Err, Jiraiya-sama, are you that opposed at the idea of me being the Godaime?" Jiraiya responded with a deep frown written across his face, making Shisui raised his hands and said, "I'll take that as a yes." Shisui was thankful he was not near the man when Jiraiya shot a glare at him, the man is intimidating with that height.

Hiruzen paused from his activity, which were paperwork and puffing out smokes from his mouth, when a brilliant idea entered his mind.

"Well, he has the backing of someone important. In fact, he has it In the same manner as Minato."

Jiraiya stood still for a few seconds and then he loudly uttered, "What the hell?!" Jiraiya knew that Kushina was the one who prompted Minato of receiving the Hokage position, so he was put off when he thought of his student's daughter... and the boy in front of him, together. Jiraiya was slack-jawed, didn't want to believe it.

Bewildered but feeling honored, Shisui closed his eyes, pondering on his current situation. He, yet again, blamed this on Naruto. He lamented how she was so persuasive that it convinced him to consider taking this job. Now, the only thing he wanted was the ground to swallow him whole with the way Jiraiya staring at him with an unreadable look on his face.

"You're pulling my leg." Jiraiya frowned as he put his hands on his hips.

"I quite confidently do not, dear student of mine." There was a mischievous smile on Hiruzen's face, and Shisui couldn't help but wonder if he could pull that off if he was as old as the man.

Jiraiya seemingly gave in after a few minutes of intense staring between him and the Sandaime, a silent conversation between them. He turned and looked at Shisui in the eyes with a fake smile.

"We need to _talk._ "

* * *

Shisui wanted to run but the door to the room was locked with fūinjutsu.

He knew what this was. Icha-icha paradise, the unholy book Kakashi-san loved to shove into everyone's faces, including his own subordinates. His mind was in denial as he stared at Jiraiya who brought this upon him.

"Even Kakashi was better than this. Seriously, you're 15, learn to live a bit, you brat."

 _'By being a pervert is living?'_ Shisui begged to differ. He would sooner drown himself again than to do that, especially with Itachi and Naruto around (Mikoto-san would give him the _talk_ again if she knew, but he shoved that thought deep inside his mind). They would _kill_ him.

"Thank you Jiraiya-sama, but I don't... need this," he gritted out, feeling tired out of sudden. His hand was still holding the book given to him and he wanted to burn it. Fast.

"Oh, you do. How could I possibly let my future leader without a proper sex education?" The smile on Jiraiya's face didn't reach his eyes. Shisui narrowed his eyes, wondering what made the man so opposed at the idea of him being the next Hokage. "I know that look of yours, brat. I'm opposed _because_ you are a bargaining chip for your clan to get their place back. A Hokage should put their village first and here you are, your clan's puppet to do their bidding."

At that, Shisui disagreed. Vehemently.

"No, Jiraiya-san. I love my village and clan _equally,"_ he stated with his shoulders tensed in seething anger at what Jiraiya was saying. "Perhaps, someone else is a better choice, that I agree. But with this, an actual peace can be achieved throughout the village. I'm a jōnin of Konohagakure, and I swear an oath to protect it until my last breath."

The air grew colder and colder, their chakra running wild in the air, and then-

"You pass!" Jiraiya exclaimed, he winked and gave Shisui a thumbs up.

At the unexpected statement, Shisui gawked awkwardly.

"This is a _test?!_ "

"Hmm, what do you think?" At the ambiguous response, Shisui sighed tiredly. He didn't know how to react to this. "What do you expect, brat? I don't know you, like, at all. Sensei just up and declares you his successor, I can't just accept it and be 'oh, okay'. That's not really my thing."

While dubiously eyeing the giant man, Shisui slowly nodded in understanding. After all, Jiraiya's mentor is the current Hokage and his student was also one. His standing alone gave him a leeway to enter and leave the village as his please, being one to protect Konoha from its shadow. Someone who actually fitted his ninja way... ironically. Because no one knew what Jiraiya was doing, a few speculated that he just wanted to sleep with every woman he came across the elemental countries, but that was not quite true. After all, the majority of Jiraiya's spies were from Geisha houses.

Shisui knew that from Hiruzen, of course. There was no documents about it, secretion and all.

Overall, Jiraiya was one of the most loyal shinobi to Konoha out of the Legendary Sannin, even if he didn't show it.

Shisui respected that.

"Oh, by the way, I put an honesty seal on you. So you might be low on chakra right now."

He took it back, Shisui didn't hold an ounce of respect for the man at all.

* * *

 **Author's Note: This was after when Hiruzen informed Jiraiya of his choice, which is three years before Naruto's graduation. Phew. The next chapter is about the new Team 7!**

 **Oh yeah, in this chapter, Shisui went from using -sama to -san to address Jiraiya, because he's not as polite as Kakashi. And the fact that he was offended by Jiraiya's attitude toward him made him use the -san honorific instead, even though he used -sama when they first met.**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**


	8. Chapter 7: Crane 「鶴」

**Chapter 7:** **Crane**

For the last three years, Konoha was in a state of relative peace.

The Uchiha has finally calmed down to some extent. While some were still waiting for Konoha to fail them, but it was such a small population that they only needed a reassurance every now and then that the Uchiha will be back to its former glory, especially to the ones who were taking an active role in the coup's plan.

Shisui was grateful for the opportunity that Naruto had made for his clan, for him. Before, all Uchiha was required to live inside the specified land near the outskirts of Konoha's north gate, but now they could live outside the Uchiha district; like Shisui does this year with Itachi's suggestion.

Of course, there were problems like some clans' jealousy over the 'special treatment' the Uchiha have been receiving ever since the advisor Danzō died, but Shisui did not heed them. Such petty jealousy is not worth to worry about, because if one could see it clearly without bias, the Uchiha have had endured the discrimination for over fifty years, that had had only worsen ten years ago, and yet still fight with the very village that had discriminated them.

If that wasn't loyalty, Shisui didn't know what is.

Danzō viewed the Uchiha as a hazard to the village's safety, and yet it was the very exact opposite. Konoha, to a certain extent, _made_ the Uchiha their own enemy by alienating them. Then the government decided that the Kyūbi couldn't attack without an Uchiha controlling it, and then they put the Uchiha under a heavy surveillance for over three years, and of course, some snapped and decided enough was enough.

Shisui couldn't really blame his clan for planning to overthrow the Hokage. He really couldn't.

A month ago, the Uchiha could finally let out a relieved breath because it was made official that he was going to be the next Hokage. After three years of discussing here and there, searching for political backings (he got the backing of the wife of the Daimyō, Jiraiya-san, Tsunade-san, Shikaku-san, the likes), the Sandaime decided on him after firing his own advisors, Koharu and Homura, who would perpetually disagree with the notion of an Uchiha Hokage.

Of course, he did ask Itachi first for permission to take the position. Shisui had known since the Sandaime declared it was either him or Itachi that was going to be the Godaime. But it was Itachi that had wanted peace, and kind of concluded that he wanted to be Hokage to make peace with every nation to prevent a war breaking up ever again. Itachi was the first to think that being a Hokage is a step to that plan, and Shisui couldn't help but feeling a bit guilty that Sandaime chose him over Itachi, even though the reasons Sandaime had given were sound.

And so he felt he had to ask his friend.

 _"It's not a big deal, I knew it's either you or me."_

 _Shisui blinked with uncertainty at his friend. He finally let out a relieved sigh when Itachi shot him a displeased look because it was so Itachi._

 _"Thanks, Itachi."_

They had been quietly competing for the title, a healthy rivalry like always, for the past three years and they agreed to not fight over it. It was a bit of a surprise when Itachi shrugged and actually said that he supported him. He had Naruto to check if Itachi was sincere or not **―** out of concern for Itachi's feelings **―** because for the past two years or so, Itachi had progressed in hiding his emotions quite well. When Naruto said Itachi _is_ conflicted but happy for him, he guessed that it was all right.

Shisui smiled as he walked around the village, his eyes occasionally flickered to the Hokage mountain. He needed to get a closer look to the village he was going to lead, after all.

* * *

"Who's your jōnin instructor?"

Sasuke was about to take the ebi tempura on his plate when his father interrupted him.

"Hatake Kakashi," he answered, his chopsticks hanging in the air.

"Hmm." Fugaku stared at his youngest son, looking a bit detached as he said, "That boy, huh."

His father's reaction seemed subdued. Sasuke thought it was a bit odd for his father to make that face. His father was usually calm or had a small smile on his face. All the times he had spent to make his father proud made him adequate in distinguishing his father's facial expressions, so he knew clearly that his father was refraining himself.

"Ah, that's right." Mikoto paused from her meal and said to her husband beside her, "Kakashi-kun came with Hokage-sama today. You're at the office, right, dear?"

Fugaku briefly nodded and sipped his tea.

Itachi, who usually was silent during a meal, spoke, "I heard from Shisui that Naruto-san is your teammate."

Sasuke abruptly stopped chewing his food. His right eyebrow's twitched at the reminder.

"Naruto?" Mikoto repeated her chopsticks in the air. Her face soon morphed into what Sasuke could describe as 'giddy'. "Oh!" She looked over her son and beamed. "Get along with her, alright?"

Sasuke could only nod awkwardly to his mother and promptly continuing his meal.

Why did his mother know that moron?

* * *

"Going back to the academy?!"

"I didn't tell you?" Kakashi tilted his head, a red book titled 'Icha-Icha Violence' in his hand.

Naruto shook her head. She briefly looked at her teammates―they looked confused as well―and with uncertainty she uttered, "No, Kakashi-sensei."

"That's weird, I could have sworn..." Kakashi rubbed his chin while staring at them. "Huh, doesn't matter. Okay, guys, the rules are..."

* * *

Really, he shouldn't have assumed that Kakashi would be lazy with the 'survival training'. Shikamaru groaned, his head down. He couldn't feel his arms, he was tied to the wooden post. Did the jōnin had to tie it so hard? He was the one who made the two idiots―who for some reason decided to bicker instead of planning on how to defeat Kakashi―worked with him; so why did the crazy silver head decide to tie him up instead?

"Right, everyone." Kakashi clapped shut his red book and placed it in his pouch. "Honestly, I can't even find the words to insult you all because... frankly, you all suck."

The three of them stared impassively at him, tired of their jōnin mentor's antics.

"But you guys worked together... so, guess what?"

The dramatic pause was driving them the three of them crazy, so Naruto demanded quite rudely, "Just say it already, Kakashi-sensei."

The crinkled, visible eye of their teacher was the only thing that indicated that he was smiling as he said, "You all pass!" As if it was an afterthought, he added, "Isn't it great?"

Naruto groaned, she didn't feel excited from all the trashing their mentor had done.

While Sasuke, who was sitting beside his teammates, was looking at the sky like he was questioning his life at this very moment.

Shikamaru was already sleeping soundly at the post; tired after running around the training field.

* * *

If he could, he would remove that lazy jōnin out of the team, preferably Naruto as well because she, honestly, was too distracting. Shikamaru was okay, he only lacked motivation, but that could be fixed with the right motivation, force, and whatnot.

Sasuke couldn't believe it, he would prefer to be an academy student again rather than to be under the jōnin's wing. He lamented as he pulled the weeds. He couldn't count how many times he did the chores, but it was more than 10 for sure.

As he observed his teammates doing exactly the same thing as he was doing, Sasuke pondered just who was going to snap at this rate.

If he had to guess, it was either him or Naruto.

* * *

D-rank missions.

Oh, how he and his team loved them. For 3 months straight they babysit toddlers, cleaning river banks, cleaning parks, tending to gardens, chasing Tora the cat, and most importantly; escorting nobles from one of the Konoha's gates to the Hokage Tower and so forth.

All are safe and alright. Almost 100% no death guaranteed and the payment was nice. If he was any less sane, Kakashi would make them take D-rank missions only as long as possible, but even if he was, that would be nigh impossible.

Sometimes, he wondered what that old man with the red hat (Naruto's nickname for the Sandaime when she was complaining) was thinking to give him a free reign to three green genin fresh from the academy while he just had quited his ANBU duties for a 'vacation'.

He was going to fail every team the Sandaime would give him to, but the first time he was given a genin team; one of the members had a particular hair color he remembered so well, he might as well not passed them if it wasn't for their teamwork (forced teamwork or not, teamwork is teamwork).

"Gosh, Kakashi-sensei. We're not babies." A pair of blue eyes so familiar confronted him a day earlier, his chest tightened at the familiarity of the gaze. "We are shinobi. Please, take us seriously."

But his lone female student didn't want safe missions. His quiet (most of the time) and calm (usually) Uchiha student was at least agreeing with her, with all the intense stares he had received from the boy for the past months.

Kakashi wished they would understand, like Shikamaru―currently his favorite student so far―because eventually they would have to take C-rank missions and then before they knew it, A-rank and then S-rank; if they became capable shinobi in the future.

But he would prefer to delay the eventual.

After all, he might couldn't take it if something happened to them. He knew himself too well, he could live even if suddenly the world was bereft of humanity sans him, but he knew he would be utterly destroyed and would be a useless empty husk until death arrived if even one of them were dead early.

He rolled his eyes, sighing in defeat at the absurdity of his actions for the past three months. Kakashi felt his life was too dramatic at times.

* * *

Naruto growled, frustrated.

Her team was the cause. The only Uchiha on the team, Sasuke, is a quiet emotional asshole so unlike Itachi, she didn't even want to compare him to Shisui. And in addition to that, she couldn't handle the feel of his chakra when he brooded because of how nauseous it made her sometimes and the strangely nostalgic sense of it. Shikamaru-the-sloth was constantly moving like an extremely unmotivated deer; she believed that it was only Chōji who can stand him. On the other hand, their jōnin instructor, Kakashi-sensei, seemed to like to coddle them and hadn't done anything other than supervising and allow them to take D-ranked missions.

Naruto just wanted to scream because she could feel their emotions. At the core, the three were similar. She had the advantage and at the same time the disadvantage of having the ability to sense their emotions.

She preferred to sense and feel Tora's chakra all day long rather than being near them for even a minute. And Tora's chakra always made her agitated, so that's that.

Fortunately, she could close her sensing skills when she didn't want to sense anything. But it was like instinct ingrained in her to sense everything around her. Even without meaning to, she would open her senses sometimes.

Naruto sighed as she leaned over the wall behind her.

"Problems?"

Naruto honestly forgot that she was not alone. She felt that she couldn't bottle it up anymore and let out a moan of frustration.

"Please do something about Kakashi-sensei, Itachi-san. I can't take this anymore." She smothered her face with her sleeve. "I've thought that once I became a genin I would be able to test myself and all that... with cool missions, teammates and a reliable jōnin instructor. Not this," Naruto growled out, "this so-called team!"

Itachi raised his eyebrows, intrigued. He was here waiting for his daily training with Shisui. Sometimes, he would indulge his friend's... roommate, but this was new. To his knowledge, Naruto rarely complained unless she was stressed or pressed on by someone.

"Sasuke's never said anything." He furrowed his eyebrows, bewildered.

"Of course he wouldn't," Naruto grumbled under her breath and asked, "Is he incapable of saying nice things?"

"What are you talking about?" Itachi blinked, his head titled to the right in a perfect picture of bewilderment.

Naruto stared at him for a while and then slumped over. She forgot that Itachi was almost blind to Sasuke's faults. Shisui often complained about that and she actually had seen him being oblivious about it, and she _forgot_.

Itachi, although still confused, stated, "If you have a problem with your jōnin instructor, I'm happened to be friends with Kakashi-senpai."

Naruto looked up, hopeful. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Thank goodness." If Naruto wasn't slumped on the ground, she would be hugging Itachi to death now. "Could you tell Kakashi-sensei to treat us seriously? Honestly, I'm getting sick of doing chores and no training. And―"

"Itachi, let's go." Shisui emerged from his room.

With a quick nod from Itachi, they took off.

"Damn it, Shisui," she muttered and lied down on the floor, already used to Shisui's daily impromptu exits.

Naruto closed her eyes as she mused randomly; why did Summer in Konoha have to be this unbearable that she had to be on the floor to cool down?

* * *

"Team Seven reporting for duty."

"Oh, right." Iruka glanced at them, noticing the two new graduates and Naruto. "Let's see. Are you guys up for pulling weeds at the village's outskirts―"

"Again?" Sasuke rolled his eyes, finally verbally complaining for the first time. "I'm sick of this."

"You're not alone," Naruto muttered under her breath.

Ignoring Sasuke's crude complaint, Iruka continued on, "... or chasing Tora the cat―"

Naruto shuddered, and immediately interrupted.

"Please no. Not again." Naruto had plenty of times chasing that cat ever since she was an academy student. She didn't want to chase that abomination again when she was now a genin for months already.

Kakashi took pity of his student's plea and asked, "Is there another mission without animals in it?"

Iruka looked over the mission lists and told, "We're currently short for D-ranks."

"Mhm... then, a C-rank mission, please," Kakashi nonchalantly requested.

Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Naruto could only gape at their mentor.

Is the sky falling down? After three months of nothing but D-ranks?

The three exchanged glances and nodded. They were mutually relieved about this.

Even Shikamaru, the least active out of his teammates, was getting tired of doing nothing but paid chores that are D-rank missions.

* * *

"This will be your first mission outside the village, huh." Shisui observed the frantic looking Naruto who was excited and nervous at the same time.

"Yeah, finally!" she grinned, arms holding a bunch of scrolls that she quickly shoved into her backpack. "A C-rank mission~!" she sang.

Shisui smiled softly. "It's just a C-rank and you are already this excited."

"Hell yeah! You know, I've never been outside the village." Naruto sighed happily. "So I'm curious about what it's like out there."

"Well, Hi no Kuni's eastern borders' climate is almost the same as here, only a little bit colder because it's nearer to Mizu no Kuni." Shisui grabbed a ladle and started stirring the boiling vegetables in the sukiyaki pot as he watched Naruto stuffed her frog shaped pouch into her backpack.

"That's a boring trivia." Naruto pouted, her eyes scanning her belongings to ensure that she didn't forget something. "I don't have to know that, right?"

"It's useful." At Naruto's disinterested stare, he chuckled. "Like, for an example; you need to borrow an extra jacket or two if you're traveling there in October." Shisui was speaking from his experiences going there in late October. Konoha has never had a winter with a 1 meter-thick pile of snow in October, so it was memorable to him for the reason that it was difficult for him to adjust to the weather.

"It's June now, I'm sure even the cold Mizu no Kuni would be hot." Naruto sat down on the couch, finished with packing her things.

* * *

"Are we there yet?"

Naruto's eye twitched dangerously. For one hour, that was all Shikamaru had said under his breath. She didn't know why, but her ears were sensitive enough to pick the crap Shikamaru had been uttering for the last hour.

"Do you like something from this trip?" she finally snapped, addressing the Nara. "Like, the scenery, perhaps?" All she received was a noncommittal shrug from the boy. Naruto had to dismiss the urge to send that lazy bastard back to Konoha via Naruto's Delivery Service (which involved lots of chakra and punches) because he had, for the umpteenth time, answered her non-verbally.

Sasuke scoffed, joining the conversation after a one hour silence. "We're only here to deliver scrolls to the eastern borders. Stop talking nonsense and keep silent, idiot."

At the rate this was going, Naruto would explode. Literally and figuratively; her chakra could be explosive and she could rant for days if she wanted to.

Kakashi hummed a tune beside her, probably noticing the growing ire on Naruto's visage.

"Guys, it's a two-day trip, let's be good to each other, okay? Especially you, _Sasuke-kun_."

Was it just her, or did Kakashi just threatened Sasuke, of all people? Naruto's heart leaped, happy for the first time with her jōnin mentor. Did Itachi say something to Kakashi that made him scold Sasuke? Whatever it was, Naruto was grateful, because this was the first time Kakashi had intervened with Sasuke's harsh words.

"Tch." Sasuke looked away, almost looking like a petulant child.

Naruto paid him no mind, unconsciously skipping from the high energy she hadn't spent today.

* * *

The client, Terumi Shouji, was on top of his black horse. He told them that the horse was apparently named 'Shiro' for the white strips near his head.

"Good job, Team Seven!" The client smiled while holding the scrolls close to his chest. The man's joy was contagious, Naruto smiled back at the man before suddenly a barrage of shuriken came at their direction.

When they finally realized they were attacked, their client was already dead.

* * *

They were running and their team leader, Kakashi, was holding back 2 jōnin; leaving the six Kiri chūnin to chase them not far behind.

At first, they didn't want to run. However, Kakashi ordered them to split up from him and run far away as possible, and they did so because the two Kiri chūnin teams weren't the usual bandits, genin, or low-level chūnin that were expected from a C-rank mission.

One of them started throwing lava around, and that was their cue to obey.

"We can't keep running," Shikamaru said, for once his visage was serious. "We have to request for a reinforcement. Our country's borders has been breached. We can't keep silent and deal it ourselves."

Sasuke nodded to him as he dodged the tree that he would have crashed into if he hadn't. "I agree. But how? If only one of us had a summon," Sasuke looked them over, "or we actually have to split up and distract them."

Naruto's thought process was frantic, but finally, she shouted, "I have one!" She slowed down and stopped.

Sasuke and Shikamaru, surprised by that, simultaneously jumped backward in order to not leave her behind.

She bit her thumb and slammed her hand down to the ground. She had to thank that giant perverted old man for this.

Once the poof went away, it revealed a normal sized orange toad.

"Gamakichi!"

' _Thank goodness it's not Gamatatsu_.' Naruto patted her chest, relieved. She had a good feeling that Gamatatsu couldn't be counted on at a time like this. She hadn't trained much with the summoning jutsu; so she had assumed it would be either Gamakichi, Gamatatsu, or even a tadpole.

"Naruto?" Gamakichi stared up at Naruto and briefly scanned his surroundings. "What is it?"

Naruto narrowed her eyes and barked, "Team Seven needs reinforcement! Two Kirigakure teams are attacking! Straight to my apartment, got it?"

Gamakichi nodded and promptly poofed away to Konoha.

"Why your apartment, usuratonkachi!" Sasuke loudly scolded.

Shikamaru sighed while looking at them. He motioned for them to move, and so they jumped from tree to tree again.

"Um, because Shisui's probably there to receive the message?" Naruto scratched the back of her head as she leaped from a tree branch to another. To her knowledge, this year, Shisui was exempt from his regular duty because he was training with the Sandaime. He would be home around this time.

"Shisui... that name sounds familiar," Sasuke muttered under his breath. "Better be a reliable person or we are done for."

Not soon after he said that a shower of lava was raining down upon them.

* * *

Shisui was enjoying the daifuku and bitter green tea he had bought after his 'training' session with the Sandaime in his (read: Naruto and his) apartment when something hit his middle section like a bulldozer.

"Ack!" he almost chocked on his food, but alarmed enough not to gulp it down yet. Surprised at the unexpected attack, he said, "What the―?"

A yellow toad was staring at him.

 _'Is that Jiraiya-san's summon?'_ Shisui pondered.

"Naruto said Team Seven needs reinforcement."

Shisui's face quickly grew rigid. "Oh?" His lips twitched, arms folded in front of his chest. "The situation, please."

"Er," Gamakichi gulped, a bit scared by the threatening aura Shisui was unconsciously emitting, but nonetheless continued on, "it seems that two teams from Kiri ambushed them."

Shisui huffed as he ruffled his hair, his gaze to the side after he saw that Gamakichi was intimidated by his stare, even though he didn't let any intent. "You're dismissed."

Not wanting to be there any longer, Gamakichi disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

* * *

Sasuke stared in astonishment.

There was a giant barrier around him and his teammates, protecting them from the hot shower of lava outside.

"Guys," Naruto was crouching down and there were two chains protruding from behind her back, "I can't keep this for long."

Shikamaru, who had closed his eyes, snapped his eyes open when he heard Naruto. He immediately scanned the surroundings behind the barrier with a shiver. Unable to see the situation outside because of the steam the rain of lava was producing, he ran to Naruto, who had made the barrier. After he was about a meter from Naruto, he pressed his lips together as his hands formed a rat handseal, ready to perform his clan jutsu whenever.

Sasuke, who was quick to follow, moved closer to Naruto and noticed her ragged breath.

"How long?" he asked, eyes darted around.

Naruto concentrated on her chakra reserves, calculating it. She said with minor difficulty, "Three minutes, tops."

Sasuke kneeled down beside his teammate. He unknowingly activating his Sharingan, as he witnessed the horrifying sight of trees around him melting and burning.

* * *

When the barrier was down, there was no more lava raining down upon them. But...

"Move!" Sasuke barked at her, his face twisted with urgency as his hand reached out to his teammate's direction.

... sharp, pointy rocks emerged from the grounds.

Naruto wasn't used from using the Kongō Fūsa (Adamantine Sealing Chains) for almost four minutes (because the hot rain hadn't yet stoped fro three minutes straight), and it pushed her ability of using it to her limits. She was too late to realize the sudden emerging rocks as she was momentarily distracted by the rapid depletion of her chakra reserves.

If it hadn't for Sasuke, who grabbed her and threw her away, Naruto would be severely injured by now.

* * *

Although it only took about ten minutes for Shisui to reach them (he knew all the details because Naruto couldn't stop talking about going to the eastern borders), he couldn't help but lamented that he was not fast enough to save Sasuke, who was unfortunately impaled in his right chest and arms by the sudden emerging of rocks earlier. He had to trust Naruto, the only one in Team 7 with a decent skill in iryojutsu, to take care of Sasuke's injuries.

A determined Shikamaru was holding two Kiri chūnin down, while two were immobilized from the many stab wounds Naruto had inflicted earlier with her chakra chains. The other two chūnin got scratched by Shikamaru, who was throwing paper bombs at them left and right, but they were still able to stand.

The six were still alive and fine.

Shisui knew he needed only one to extract information from, as his sharingan examined their facial expressions and body languages.

He extracted his short sword from his back and used Shunshin (Body Flicker) repeatedly to appear behind the 5 of them and sliced their necks, leaving a fatal injury for each. No one was retaliating because they obviously were middle level shinobi with generic skills, and he was too fast for them to counter. It was easy for him to pick the older, seemingly more knowledgeable of the bunch with a thin cut near his jugular to interrogate.

Unfortunately, extreme measures had to be taken; the Kiri shinobi were not supposed to be here, after all.

.

.

.

Red eyes were gleaming as they were directed at a barely conscious shinobi wearing the Kiri forehead protector.

"Tell me all you know about the Akatsuki."

.

.

.

Pained screams echoed throughout the burning forest.

* * *

"C'mon, heal quickly, dammit."

Naruto wished things were different. If they hadn't been stubborn and demand an early C-rank mission, Sasuke wouldn't be in this state, protecting her from the sudden rock spikes. If the client was more informative, the mission wouldn't be a failure. So many things she wished were different and she honestly wanted to blame someone, either herself, the client, or even Kakashi-sensei.

But blaming someone or something would do nothing, all she had to do was to focus on maintaining her healing chakra.

And of course, ignoring the sounds of pained screams that one enemy was producing in the background.

She knew she was low on chakra. Even so, when the green chakra that coated her hands diminished, disbelief swelled inside her.

Panicked but trying to be calm, Naruto squeezed her eyes shut as she hoped for her chakra to recover quickly. She opened her eyes and looked at her hands. Something urged her to put the side of her thumb near Sasuke's mouth, and she did just that and promptly forced him to bite it.

Suddenly, green, visible chakra coated Sasuke's entire body.

Naruto wasn't sure why she did what she did, but she sure as hell wouldn't question it. Or, she couldn't even contemplate it because as soon as the green chakra coated Sasuke's body, she collapsed face first on top of Sasuke's stomach.

* * *

Kakashi was hovering over his students, subtly. His eyes constantly flickered between them and the mess in front of him. Shikamaru, his favorite, was out cold on the stretcher Shisui had brought with him. Naruto was on the ground beside a peaceful, yet battered looking Sasuke. All three of them are unconscious.

He was left breathless as he waited for them to wake up. He was reminded of his former team who he shouldn't even think of in this situation, because every time he did so, he was left trembling uncontrollably for a few seconds because he would calmed himself down by remembering the positive memories.

After he observed the state of the forest, Kakashi bowed his head.

Kiri, as usual, is ruthless and unpredictable. Nothing has changed since ten years ago.

* * *

"Kakashi."

What did he do to deserve two students who won't call him 'sensei'? Kakashi himself admitted that he was an asshole before Obito's death, but he knew he was a polite one. He was not like Sasuke or even his―currently― favorite student, Shikamaru. But even the young Nara would call him by his given name.

Although the reason he liked Shikamaru was because he was too lazy to talk―Kakashi liked the silence sometimes― but if he were honest with himself, his favorite will be Naruto who was his glue to care for the team for she resembled Rin quite a bit, and even Obito to some extent.

"Hmm?" His back was on the shōji door behind him, effectively blocking anyone from exiting or entering the room. Sasuke was tapping his foot, while he leaned to the wall beside him. He looked like he had just got back from the restroom. "Ah, sorry." Kakashi slid forward, letting Sasuke went inside.

"How are they?" Sasuke's dark gray eyes landed on both of his teammates' still forms.

It was murmured, but Kakashi had a really good hearing so even without concentrating, he had picked that up. "They're fine," he told.

Sasuke looked at Naruto a bit longer than Shikamaru, he put his hands inside his pants' pockets. "What a moron," he mumbled under his breath.

Kakashi hid his crinkled eye behind his red book and said, "She is, right?" Looking at the Uchiha, he was reminded of Obito. He had heard from Shisui―who was told by Shikamaru― that the boy was protecting Naruto by throwing Naruto, with all his might, to a safe spot uncovered with lava. That was just too Obito that he chuckled while flipping the page of the book he currently was reading.

Sasuke turned his back on his jōnin mentor, cheeks red. He was embarrassed that he was heard. He was just insulting Naruto for healing him to the point that she fainted. He didn't need for that jōnin to comment on what he was saying.

There were new footsteps outside and someone Sasuke wasn't expecting sliding the paper door. Though it explained why they were here at a random ryokan who knows where and not dead.

"You're not supposed to be up yet, Sasuke." The newcomer frowned at him.

"Shisui-san," Sasuke briefly inclined his head to his fellow clan member, "thank you for coming."

Kakashi took note of the rare display of respect from Sasuke and quietly sighed in dismay, concerned with the boy's behavior. At first he thought the boy was incapable of being respectful. But now that he knew Sasuke could be polite when he wanted to, he needed to arrange some training for his team to be polite if needed (Naruto sometimes called their D-rank clients with nicknames in front of their faces, even if he knew it was unacceptable, he ignored it before because... just because).

"Don't mention it." Shisui's gaze wandered to the pained-looking Naruto. "Chakra Exhaustion?" he inquired his fellow jōnin.

Kakashi took one look at Naruto and nodded. "Apparently."

"Typical." Shisui pursed his lips and plopped down on the corner of the room. "Once they wake up, we're going back," Shisui informed Sasuke, who was examining his backpack.

Sasuke nodded, and said with his back turned, "Understood."

They were in a six mat tatami room. With five people in such a room, it would surely be a long night for them.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I tried. But apparently, I can't write action scenes... oh well. It's not like I'm a real author... right? *nervous chuckles***

 **Btw, I hope you all enjoy this.** **If not, well, tell me, alright?**

 **See you!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**

 **P.S. Crane symbolizes 'longevity' and 'eternal-youth' in Japan, so I thought it would fit with the Healing Bite ability.**

 **Edit: November 3rd, 2018. I don't know how it happened, but this chapter went from 3k+ words to 5k+ words.**


	9. Omake 2 「お負け２」

**Timeline: After Kakashi's 'Survival Training'**

 **Omake: The Blackout**

Naruto won't admit it to anyone, ever, that she is a little bit scared of darkness.

Just a little.

The blackout was just after the sun was down. But even so, Naruto couldn't handle the darkness and hurriedly walked to open the shuttered curtains. When the moonlight shined upon her two-room apartment, she breathed out with relief and threw herself onto the couch Shisui had brought from his house.

That was what Shisui had witnessed when he, out of nowhere, appeared in the kitchen.

His habit of entering her apartment, apparently, is by using shunshin. A waste of chakra usage, in Naruto's opinion, but who she was to protest when she herself would do it if she had just mastered the damn technique already. Shisui was just back from the Hokage Tower, which was near her apartment, and still, he used it every time. For him to waste his energy just to reach home faster... there might be something going on or he was just lazy. Naruto was betting on the latter.

"I didn't know you're scared of the dark." A smile was on the corner of his lips. Naruto found it humiliating and chose to ignore him by laying on the couch and closing her eyes, impatiently waiting for the blackout to end. "Don't worry, the lights will probably turn on in a minute."

Naruto opened her left eye. "How do you know?"

"Oh, that's," Shisui muffled a laughter with the back of his hand, "because I was the one who turned the lights off in the first place?"

Naruto stilled for a second. She got up from the couch and calmly walked to switch the lights on.

Of course, the lights turned on in an instant. Naruto turned around and looked at him in distaste, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together to show it.

Shisui was in the kitchen, a grin etched on his face as he gestured to the food spread across the table. A celebration for passing Kakashi's test, it seemed, judging by the 'Congratulations on becoming an official Genin!' banner hanging from the ceilings.

"How is it?" Shisui asked as they sat down to dine. "It's a prank, in case you can't tell."

Naruto briefly shot him a glare. "I can't say how much you've scored," Naruto mumbled and broke one of the disposable chopsticks. "But that was a good one."

"I thought it was good enough to amaze you." Shisui frowned, already shoving down one gyoza down his throat. "It feels real, right? You can't turn it on before I revealed it. Not to mention, I used a genjutsu to make the area around here dark."

"Hmph." Naruto eyed the takeaway Ichiraku ramen bowls and grabbed two. "You can never beat me at pranks. That, unfortunately for you, is a fact."

"Bold claim you have there, Naruto-sama." Shisui knew Mitarashi Anko would give Naruto a run for her money. "One of these days, I'll set a good prank for sure."

"I can't wait for that." She stole a glance at Shisui and smiled. She didn't know what brought this on, but she was happy that he did it just to surprise her with the food.

She could cheat and find out the main emotion he was currently feeling with her sensing ability, after all.

* * *

 **Time Line: A few months before Naruto's graduation**

 **Omake: A Day with Tsunade**

"... and so the seal acted as a..." Tsunade trailed off.

Naruto nodded, eyes focused with intensity. "Yeah. When a patient needs blood and there's only an unknown type of a blood, all we have to do is let a drop of that patient's blood and the seal will make the donor's blood compatible to the patient's blood type."

She took one packet of type RH+ A blood packet and put it on top of the 変化/henge (transform) kanji that was surrounded by a circle of smaller kanji. She took a cup filled with RH- AB type of blood and dropped a droplet of blood on the 血液型/ketsueki-gata (blood type) kanji that was also surrounded by smaller kanji.

Naruto formed a snake hand seal and channeled her chakra to the seal. She didn't utter the name of the seal because she didn't have a name for it. While without uttering the name, the process would slow down, Naruto was used to do jutsu without uttering the name. Saying the name only helped to focus to perform the jutsu, anyway.

They watched as the droplet of blood disappeared. When the sealing formula finished creeping into the blood packet, Tsunade wasted no time to test the transformed blood packet.

"My goodness, this is incredible." She eyed the result and then looked at Naruto with a brief smile. "To think you'd learned fuuinjutsu all by yourself." Tsunade lightly ruffled Naruto's head. "You're just like―" Tsunade paused, seemingly careful to choose a word, "―like Jiraiya."

"Jiraiya?" Naruto wasn't one to remember easily. Even today she would still call Tsunade with only 'Oba-san'.

Tsunade let out an exasperated sigh. "One of my teammates."

A teammate? Naruto finally remembered where she learned that name.

"Oh, the Icha-Icha series' author?" A look from Tsunade made Naruto nervous. "What is it?"

The tone was casual, but Naruto felt the irritation Tsunade was feeling currently when she inquired, "You read those books?"

"No, I don't," Naruto denied as she held up her hands, shaking her head a few times for a good measure. "I've met with this 'Jiraiya'. That giant old guy introduced himself as an author of those books I saw once in the bookstore, but they had an 18 only sign on it, so I don't know what's inside."

Tsunade uttered softly, "Glad to hear that." She paused for a moment then asked, "Where did you meet him?"

"A month ago when I went to the hot springs with Izumi-neechan. That guy's chakra was freakishly strong so I asked him to teach me something and he let me..." Naruto scratched her cheeks, almost giving the information that she had signed a toad summoning contract that old man had offered. "... yeah, never mind. So, well, I thought he was the owner of that hot springs because when I went there again last week, he was there."

Tsunade's eyes flashed with something that was just frightening. Naruto was thankful she didn't open her sensor ability because it didn't take her to use her ability to know that Tsunade was _livid_.

"Thank you, Naruto." Tsunade cleared her throat and pointed to the sealing formula on the scroll. "Now, continue on this seal. What is it for?"

* * *

 **Just extras/omake that I suddenly thought of recently.**

 **This story is made when I was sick and my brain decided that I want more of Shisui and Female Naruto together, so at first, I was going to make this a one-shot only, with Shisui still dying in his encounter with Danzō. I don't know how it had progressed this far... I mean, I had never written a fic with more than five chapters. This is a miracle for me (lol).**

 **See you!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**


	10. Chapter 8: Rebellion 「謀叛」

**Chapter 8: Rebellion**

.

.

.

"This feeling... it's that dream again, huh?"

She was floating. Groggily, she got up, only to notice that her surroundings resembled the Konoha sewers, that she had cleaned after a prank gone wrong, but without the nasty stuff. As usual, her nose couldn't detect a smell at all. Her half-lidded eyes noticed the familiar hallway, and she followed the pipes to the destination.

It was like a maze, but she knew where she was going. A minute or so later, she entered a room and found herself in front of a giant gate with '封印' (fuuin) kanji paper on the middle.

Darkness was what she could get out from it, yet she felt the powerful being, the emotion it radiated, the breath-stopping chakra and she just freeze on her spot like a scared little girl.

Her breath was taken away when all of sudden a giant, menacing red eye gazed directly at her.

 **"You!"** The creature growled as he pointed an elongated, sharp nail at her. **"Get out of here, you brat―"**

A surge of a powerful blast of wind knocked her away, involuntarily made her close her eyes.

While it happens every time, the roar that was echoing throughout the dimly lit hallway, sent a chill down her spine.

* * *

The scenery rapidly changed and it took a few seconds for her to register.

"Oh, Naruto, you're awake?"

She blinked profusely, taking in the change. "Shisui?" It was the dream. Again, it felt so real she still felt the tremor that was caused by the powerful roar that was laced with the malicious, red chakra. "Is that you?" Looking at the hovering Shisui beside her futon with his sharingan on for a second, it reminded her of the giant, red one-eyed being that she kept seeing in her dreams for as long as she could remember. On an important note: she had yet managed to find out if the terrifying being was one-eyed or not.

"Yes, it's me." Shisui nodded, the corner of his eyes creased as his lips tugged upward. He watched as Naruto groaned and placed her hands on the futon to get up. Finding that Naruto didn't have problems getting up herself, he relaxed. "You okay?" he inquired.

"Ugh... I feel sore all over." She rubbed her eyes and clapped her cheeks to feel awake. "What happened?" Naruto looked around. She was at a traditional lodge; ryokan? Naruto let out a relieved sigh when her eyes spotted Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and Shikamaru, alive.

"You fainted after you healed Sasuke." Shisui let out a faint snort as he said lightly, "He said you're a moron, by the way."

"... hey, you just don't antagonize the one who healed you." Naruto glared weakly at nothing in particular. "I know you're there even if I don't see you, Sasuke." Her tone was biting, challenging the boy to insult her like always.

"Calm down, Naruto, I'm sure he didn't mean it," Shisui put up his hands and conciliated, a small smile formed on the corner of his lips. "Ready to go home?" He crinkled his nose. "Or do you want to bathe first?"

"Ng?" Naruto sniffed her short, orange sleeved yukata. She eyed the dried stain of blood on it. Must be Sasuke's. "Ugh, yeah, a bath it is." She tried to get up only to trip over her hair. With a thud, Naruto was lying down on the futon again. "Who the heck untied my hair?" she asked the people in the room while looking for her red hair tie.

Shisui shrugged and looked over his shoulder to the silver-haired man in the corner of the room. Kakashi, noticed the silent question, looked to Shikamaru, who in turn looked at Sasuke.

Sasuke hummed uncomfortably and elaborated.

"I thought it looked uncomfortable to sleep with your hair tied like that." At Naruto's raised eyebrow, he reluctantly added, "My brother used to sleep with tied hair whenever he's tired and I used to untie it for him."

"That's new," Naruto stated, her eye twitched, trying not to incredulously stare at her teammate for being so honest, for once. She successfully tied her hair into a high pony-tail and looked at Sasuke. "Oh yeah, Sasuke, how are your wounds?"

He turned his back on her. "It's fine."

Frowning, she didn't believe him a bit as she felt his ever-changing emotions, and went over to him. Not heeding his displeased grunts, Naruto checked him and marveled at how there was no wound on him at all. Her unknown ability to let one bite her skin to recover completely is a mystery that she needed to uncover as soon as she reached Konoha.

' _Rathen than myself_ ,' Naruto mused inwardly, ' _Oba-san will probably be more excited about this discovery_.'

Glancing at his students, Kakashi announced, "This warrants for Ichiraku Ramen." Naruto snapped her head to his direction. "Don't worry, I'll pay."

That was something to look forward into.

* * *

Shocked, Naruto's mouth was agape. "A civil war?" she repeated what had been told just now. "And there's a faction of rebel and that client was one of them?" Too occupied with her disbelief, she didn't watch what's in front of her and slipped on a wet, green moss.

Kakashi caught Naruto, who slipped, by the cuff of her yukata. Naruto sheepishly turned around and looked over her shoulder, thanking him.

Sasuke flickered his eyes toward Shisui. "That client is the leader's cousin?" At Shisui's nod, he commented, "No wonder he was targeted."

Naruto sharply glared at Sasuke for that comment, her mouth open. She didn't form the words for the reason that she didn't know what to say to that.

"They have been at it for years," Shisui sighed as he looked at a conflicted-looking Naruto, "We have only received the intel after Shimura Danzou's death."

"Then, Konoha knows about it for three years. I'll assume it's known only to the higher-ups," Shikamaru concluded. His posture unusually proper, his eyes focused. "After all, our country doesn't want to get involved with such controversial topic such as rebellion."

Sasuke's face hardened, his lips pressed together as he leaped to one tree to another. His eyes dimmed, seemingly deep in thought. Shisui, who was behind him, kept his eyes at Sasuke with a knowing look and shook his head.

While Shikamaru, who was also focused on something that made him look like he was constipated, narrowed his eyes at the gesture as brief suspicion glinted in his eyes for a second.

Kakashi noticed his team went quiet after the reveal. He himself wasn't surprised in the slightest. While knowing about it helped, he had gone through the Third Great Ninja War and had countless experiences witnessing gruesome scenes in the course of his 19 years of living as a shinobi, the reminder did put him in a slight shock. He didn't expect for his team's first C-rank to went like this. Although the mission could be stated as 'success', they had delivered the scrolls to the client, after all. Yet, it would be a 'failure' in the paper because the client couldn't send the payment to Konoha, as the client was, simply put, dead.

While knowing that she was fundamentally different than the other four people with her, she keenly felt out of place as she looked at them. Feeling each of her team members' chakra didn't help at all, as they were quite distraught with the information, sans Kakashi who she guessed did know about the rebellion. Shisui's chakra, on the other hand, indicated that he was anxious. Understandable, as they were still outside of Konoha. It meant that anything could happen on their way there.

Rebellion against an unjust government. Naruto heaved a sigh, couldn't imagine a Yondaime, from Kiri nonetheless, doing something like Bloodline Purge. It was a greater scale than what would happen if Danzo had gotten his hand on the Uchiha.

"What happened to the client?" Naruto continued on, albeit hesitantly, "He's dead, right?"

"Yes," Kakashi replied, his voice neutral. "Konoha will send the body to the rebel faction, along with the scrolls."

"In order to not antagonize them, huh," Shikamaru remarked. "Seems like Hi no Kuni is taking a neutral stance on their plight."

However, it went unsaid between them at how the client could buy supplies from Konoha, the only military village in Hi no Kuni, in the form of a C-ranked delivery mission.

' _The_ _body... huh?_ ' Naruto bit her lips, trying her hardest to erase the man's smile―that seemed genuine―from her mind. She had only briefly interacted with him and yet how could she felt something about this wasn't right?

"Kakashi-sensei," she called out to the man behind her.

"Hmm?"

"Is it... is it common for missions to ended up like this?" she asked, trying to tread carefully with her question but feeling she couldn't, so she didn't even try to censor most of it, really. "That Oji-san didn't deserve it, right? He was just trying to get supplies to aid his comrades." She momentarily paused and added with a gulp, "He died a needless death."

Kakashi tilted his head at her, his one eye curled up. "I can't say that it's uncommon. But indeed, he died a needless death." A moment of silence passed and he said, "you know what, Naruto? I'll take all of you to my favorite place. There's something I need to teach you guys, after all."

Shisui glanced at his senior, noting his glazed eye. He grimly remembered that both of them had experienced war and a soldier of war at a very young age. His first visit to Kakashi's favorite place was when he was just about 7. Peacetime had made it possible, for shinobi under fifteen, to not stare at their friend's name on some stone.

The memorial stone is a place every war veteran has visited. Every time he remembered that he was glad that Naruto and her peers didn't have to experience war.

* * *

"Shikamaru!" He was on his way to his house from Ichiraku when he heard Chouji calling him from across the street.

"Oh, Chouji?" he eyed the backpack on his friend's back. "Back from a mission?"

"Uh-uh." Chouji smiled as he walked. "It's been almost a week since I last saw you!" Shikamaru nodded, as he matched Chouji's walking pace.

They processed to take a walk across the busy street.

"Do you want to meet my team?" Chouji reached to his backpack and took a bag of his favorite chips. Absently, he said, "Shiho-san is asking me to introduce her to you."

"Troublesome." Shikamaru sighed, knowing that it was unavoidable. "Next time, with my team."

"You're getting along with Naruto and Sasuke?" Chouji beamed at his friend. He was the one who encouraged the almost anti-social Shikamaru to interact with his teammates, after all.

Shikamaru's face scrunched up at that. "... maybe?" he scratched the back of his head. "I'll say yes, though."

"Glad to hear that," Chouji said while stuffing a bunch of chips to his mouth. "Do you remember Kiba? He's inviting us for Yakiniku Q whenever we're available."

Of course, he remembered. He and Kiba used to cut classes together before he moved up to Chouji's class. Shikamaru shrugged and told, "Fine, I'm free this weekend."

"I'll tell him that, then." Chouji was about to offer his chips to Shikamaru when he recalled the conversation he had with his sensei. "Is your team going to participate for the Chuunin Exams this year?"

Taken aback, all Shikamaru could say to that was; "It's the time for Chuunin Exams already?"

* * *

 **Author's Note/Rant: What have I been dreaming? Two chapters (chapter 7 and 8, omake not included) in a month before the Mid-term Exams of my Uni? I feel so happy and sad now.**

 **I think if Naruto were female in the show, he would be a little more respectful. For the reason that, in Japan, people expect girls to be more polite in the way they're speaking and behaving. Naruto definitely won't be the same if his chromosomes were double x, because, face it, boys and girls are treated differently even in the first world. So because of that, I made Naruto use 'Oji-san' to call the OC client because it's politer.** **Do you guys also think so or not?** **If not, well... I'm curious about why you think otherwise.**

 **And I have to confess that I'm currently majoring in Japanese Literature and is about to take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N1 in December this year. So I... kinda have to restrain my stressed-out 'Inner Japanese' from littering this story with Japanese characters all over the place. After all, if I do that, it would only confuse readers and make me look like a weaboo desperate to look like I know Japanese. Though I did put some Japanese characters in this story; hopefully, it wasn't excessive that it discourage you to read this fic.**

 **Oh yeah, I write this without planning ahead and kinda have to imagine what the characters would say in Japanese first (ouch, even though English and Japanese aren't my native languages...). Yeah, I know it's bad, but I'm wired like this.** **That's why I'm updating at random, so I like to read the reviews you guys left in the comment section to motivate myself.**

 **I'd appreciate it if you guys could give me any suggestions, ideas, references, heck, anything is better than nothing. In short; if you could, leave a review, please. Sometimes when I don't have any idea what to write, I re-read any good fanfics or listening to songs to get any kind of inspirations.**

 **Well then, see you guys soon!**

 **-Tonegawa Rie**

 **Edited: November 3rd, 2018**


	11. Omake 3 「お負け3」

**This Chapter is just a piece of Naruto's** **past. All the characters with names are canon except for Sarutobi Hikone. I feel like** **this omake is to tell you that I'm not abandoning this fic :)**

* * *

 **Omake 3: Remembrance**

* * *

"I will be monitoring her."

Hiruzen gave a scrutinizing look at the person standing before him.

The newborn baby was in his daughter's hold. The baby, with the yellow tuft of hair and blue eyes, closely resembled his successor so much it gave him a tingle of self-resentment every time he saw the baby's face. After all, he wasn't able to prevent Minato's death and the new Jinchūriki would be without both of her parents.

"It'll be dangerous, Hikone," he warned her, "But very well."

They shared a wry smile.

* * *

A pair of teary blue eyes looked up, shivering as she was held in a stranger's arms. Her young mind didn't understand why the nice Hiko-nee gave her a cold look each time she wanted to wail, but Naruto held in.

"Don't mistreat her," Hikone warned the orphanage caregivers and left, "and hide her whenever Danzō comes."

Yakushi Nonō nodded, her grip on the Jinchūriki tightened.

By then, the one and a half year Uzumaki Naruto didn't understand that someone just abandoned her. But that night, she cried all the while calling for Hiko-nee.

* * *

"Your name doesn't have kanji, it should be simple for you to write."

"Uh, your name doesn't have kanji too! Only your clan name."

The girl with shoulder-length blonde hair commented while looking at the chicken scratch that was Naruto's handwriting. "Tch, how come I can't read this?" The girl waved around the paper.

Naruto eyebrows furrowed, her palms clammy from grasping the brush tightly. "Your name is simple, too! Four characters, then wham! You're done!"

"I _know_ that." The girl rolled her eyes and snorted. "But your name isn't a shortened version of 'Inoshishi (Mountain Boar)'. Be grateful."

While this girl was nice, she had one of hell of an attitude that left Naruto clueless on how to act around this girl.

Today was the day when the Orphanage opened up its door for a fundraiser. Naruto didn't have a clue why she had to learn calligraphy with this girl on this particular day, where there were so many food stalls to visit. At first, it was fun talking to this girl she had yet remember the name of, but Naruto was bored to death already. She really hated something as boring as 'studying'.

As usual, there were some people who would follow her. As a three-year-old, she found nothing wrong about it and only glance once or twice to their direction.

As she strolled the streets with her blue hat on to obscure her hair and face, her gaze wandered off to a nearby stall. She paused and stared at it, noting the customer with red and white robe looking at her with recognition in his eyes.

"Would you like to come in?" A smile was plastered on the old man's face. Naruto wondered if that was genuine. To her, the old man felt strange. It felt like when she broke those plates and got the coldest stare ever from the Keiri-san.

"I'll buy you one bowl."

For a second, Naruto hesitated. Yet, the smell and the appearance didn't allow her to refuse. Naruto took the seat beside him with little difficulty.

 _'Whoa,'_ she sniffed the delicious aroma wafting through the air, _'is it really okay for me to eat that?'_ She flickered her eyes at the old man and then tried to read the menu.

Finding that she didn't know what she wanted, she tugged the man's robe and asked, "Ojii-chan, I don't know what to choose."

"What about tonkotsu ramen with pork slices on top?" The man suggested while pointing at a picture on the menu. "It's my favorite, I could almost eat it every day," he added.

"But it's not good for your health to eat it every day, Hokage-sama," the girl with white apron and hat commented from behind the bar. The old man was probably a regular for the girl to casually mention something like that. "Oh, hi there, little one. What can I get for you today?"

After glancing up once more to the old man beside her, she said, "Tonkotsu Ramen with pork slices, please."

"Got it!"

As she waited for her bowl of ramen to come, she glanced subtly at the seemingly kind man.

 _'The old man's name is Hokage, huh? What a weird name.'_

Only later on when she told Nonō-san about this encounter that she learned that 'Hokage' isn't a name, but a title for the village's leader.

* * *

The Konoha Orphanage, where she had spent two years, is one of the new buildings placed near the edge the Konoha's Northern Gate after the Kyuubi's Attack. To her, the place was almost void of happy memories because the people who acknowledged that she existed could be counted with one hand. Even so, those people's eyes were so cold, her stomach dropped every time her eyes met theirs.

She was doodling in a notebook that Inoshishi-something blonde haired girl gave her when the new kid approached her.

"Hey, hey! Can I join?"

The warden whose name she didn't know, pulled the boy and dragged him away as soon as the boy said it, giving no time for her to respond.

"Don't play with her."

The boy was looking over his shoulder―at her―and looked up to the warden. "But―"

 _'At least he was protesting,'_ Naruto tried to tug her lips to form a smile. She immediately cowered when she noticed the look that man directed at her.

She had learned that hatred is unreasonable, vile, and cold. As someone who had to deal with it on a daily basis, she understood it well how it feels.

With a dismayed sigh, Naruto guessed that it was normal to feel like this. To feel only understanding and acceptance, no matter how suffocating it was to be here.

"Here," one of the caretakers, everyone affectionately called her Keiri-obasan, handed her the huge broom. Naruto blinked, broken out of her musing as the woman continued, "Clean this hallway."

Her hand grabbed the handle tightly, her eyes flickering anywhere but the woman's eyes.

"Yes, Keiri-san."

She had learned that tolerance is lukewarm, like the hot tea that got cold in the chilly winter. And it's different from kindness. The warmth from real kindness is like a bonfire that wouldn't burn you―but surrounds you with it.

Naruto learned to be polite, to always use honorifics before one's name, to obey the elders, the likes. If she didn't, Nonō-san, everyone calls her "Mother", wouldn't give her the monthly allowance for her to sneak out the orphanage and visit the Ichiraku.

Even though she knew she was different than the other kids in this orphanage, she always tried to find the positives. If Keiri-san talked to her, it meant she acknowledged her existence. If one of the kids, mostly the new wards, talked to her, which occurred once in a blue moon, it meant she must be doing something right for once.

She could remember that she wasn't always at the Orphanage. She could remember warmth and smiles directed toward her. Her memories might be vague, but it helped her get through living in this establishment, where every day seemed bleak.

"The Yondaime saved us from the giant Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit..."

At night, a bedtime story was told by Nonō-san. The Tale of Yondaime defeated the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit was already told more than a dozen times already, yet no one was bored.

Almost all the caretakers and the kids avoided her, but she could always listen to the tale she loved the most as long as she stayed at the corner of the room. As she stared at Yondaime's picture hanging on the wall, she wondered if it takes to be someone as amazing as the Yondaime to be acknowledged.

For a fleeting moment, she imagined herself as awesome as the man. She could picture lots of cheers, praises. She hugged her knees together, her eyes hard and focused.

Smiling to herself, she mumbled, "I'll become Hokage, then."


End file.
